


SnSSSSSwSnw 




•wSw 


cSvc 


■sHHi 


rois: «ro£ 
































































Class. YE !4~f 7 
Boole_ 

CniyriglifN 0 Cap Zs .. 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 


















THE CENTURY 
BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


BY 


GARLAND GREEVER 

H * 

AND 

JOSEPH M. BACHELOR 



t * 

* * * 


THE CENTURY CO. 
NEW YORK & LONDON 





Copyright, 1923, by 
The Century Co. 


©C1A766311 

i- 

Printed in U. S. A. 

DEC ! 2 1573 v 




PREFACE 


This book is not just another book of selections. It 
comes into being in answer to needs not met hitherto. 
Admirable in various ways as are many existing collections 
of models, no one of them seems entirely adapted to the 
student who aims, not at professional authorship, but at 
reasonable proficiency in workaday writing. Such a student, 
to be sure, does not demand that every stroke of his pen 
shall be utilitarian. He is willing to engage in a variety of 
tasks, both from sheer interest in them and for the sake of 
developing versatility. But the end for which he under¬ 
takes them is that he may acquire the resourcefulness and 
skill of a person who is truly educated yet who cherishes 
no desire to be numbered with the classics. Such a student 
deserves to be met half-way. The purpose of this book is 
to meet him half-way, to interest him, to help him to the 
mastery of clear, forceful, flexible English. 

What kind of selections will best answer his require¬ 
ments ? 

Obviously, the selections should be interesting. This does 
not mean that they need be brainless. But it is an astonish¬ 
ing fact that many a collection otherwise well-planned is 
dull—woefully, hopelessly dull. The very teacher balks. 
Of the work done in class on these ‘'models” it is he who 
does a good seventy-five per cent.; but he does it from a 
weary sense of duty, and he flies to tasks more congenial 


PREFACE 


the moment his conscience is salved. As for the student, he 
is only too aware that the situation is a bad one and he con¬ 
tents himself with seeing what the teacher can make of it. 
If called upon to shoulder a portion of the burden, he 
mutters those “curses, not loud but deep,” to the sincerity 
of which Macbeth once attested. 

In the present volume no pains have been spared to secure 
really interesting material. In merit, of course, the selec¬ 
tions vary. They also range afar in tone and topic and 
method. They are gleaned both from standard and from 
present-day writers. Nevertheless it is the hope of the 
editors that they are of the kind which will be read, not 
primarily from compulsion, but because they attract—be¬ 
cause they give pleasure. 

In the second place, the selections for an ideal volume 
should be such as the student will find usable. Here again 
the material assembled in collections is oftentimes amazingly 
at fault. The student can make no real use of it. To begin 
with, the pieces are altogether too long. The student’s own 
themes are but three hundred to five hundred words in 
length. Yet he is supposed to bear in mind as a model an 
elaborate piece of writing that devotes as much space to a 
single paragraph as he has for his whole composition. More¬ 
over the pieces are wrought in a manner he may deem excel¬ 
lent but has no desire to emulate. They are stately and 
cold and remote. A platonic rectitude exudes from them, 
whereas he “does something smack, something grow to, he 
has a kind of taste.” He not only cannot write like his 
models. He does not even wish to write like them. The 
connection between his “models” and his writing appears to 
him the most unreal of all the polite fictions that have being 


vi 


PREFACE 


in the educational world. If perforce he imitates one of 
the pieces, he regards the exercise as a stunt which he will 
not repeat as long as he lives. 

The present volume consists of material that is really 
usable. For one thing, most of the selections are short. A 
large proportion of them indeed are confined to a single 
paragraph; and though the length of the selections increases 
in the latter part of the book, that length is constantly gradu¬ 
ated to the conviction that models should of truth be models. 
Again, the material, though purposely varied, though some¬ 
times strictly intellectual, though in a few instances shaped 
with conscious artifice, is never too stilted or too sedate. Its 
method and manner are such as the student can employ, 
with due modifications, in writing of his own. 

The approach recommended is the simple approach. In 
this book conventional barriers, such as the mechanical dis¬ 
tinction between kinds of composition, are minimized rather 
than built higher. Forms are well enough, but there are so 
many of them that no harm can come from skipping a few. 
The average human being sets out, not to write forms, but 
to write what he has to say. So, in truth, do the very artists 
whom the worshipers of forms revere. Therefore the ma¬ 
terial of this volume has been given its arrangement from 
natural rather than from scholastic needs and purposes. For 
those teachers, however, who find the division into forms 
of value, a separate table of contents is provided. 

That models of composition may be really of service two 
things must take place. The young writer must study each 
selection he comes to—not recognize it as existing; study it. 
Afterward he must apply whatever lessons it yields him; 
after examining what others have done, he himself must do. 


Vll 



PREFACE 


How insure the studying of a selection? First, by mak¬ 
ing the student sure that his studying shall be of the right 
kind rather than of the hit-or-miss, shot-at-the-universe 
kind. This book sets up for him a guidepost to each selec¬ 
tion. By so doing it does not perform his task for him; it 
merely places him on the path of definite and intelligent 
performance for himself. In the second place, the studying 
of a selection may be insured by making such study the pre¬ 
liminary to further assignment, a practice which this book 
follows. The nature of the assignment will be explained 
presently. Here it need only be observed that the closer 
linking of model with original endeavor is an incentive to 
the thorough understanding of the model. The student will 
pay closer heed to a selection if he sees it not as a thing that 
ends in itself, but as a thing out of which something else 
shall grow. 

But how apply the knowledge gained from the study of 
the model? By basing original work upon the principles 
discovered in it. In this book each selection is followed by 
a number of topics capable of development by the method 
employed in the selection. The student may chose any one 
of them—and every effort has been made to make them per¬ 
tinent and enticing. But if, as is hoped, they stimulate his 
imagination and by showing him the kind of thing to be 
done induce him to put forward a topic of his own, so much 
the better—he may work upon that. 

Although it has been said that preliminary clues and appo¬ 
site assignments accompany each selection, that practice is 
not invariably followed. No procedure is so good but that 
it may become monotonous if too rigidly adhered to. 
Wherever in this book a departure of any kind seems likely 

viii 


PREFACE 


to assist, to stimulate, or to challenge the student, that de¬ 
parture is unhesitatingly made. 

Such are the larger ideas, purposes, and methods of the 
volume. In matters of less scope, also, the editors believe 
that their work is thoroughly practical. An example is the 
detailed consideration of the paragraph, the logical unit of 
writing. Young writers as a rule are decidedly at sea as 
to ways of developing paragraphs, yet the typical book of 
selections gives them no aid in this fundamental matter. 
Here the necessary guidance is forthcoming at the very be¬ 
ginning of the course. 

Another problem, and a most vexatious one, for the young 
writer is how to begin themes and how to end them. A 
whole section of this volume is devoted to the illustration 
and analysis of sound methods. 

Furthermore the student is accustomed to being told, 
sapiently but vaguely, of the importance of point of view. 
Why it is important he cannot see; the abstractions have no 
meaning for him. Here a section is given over to a group¬ 
ing of articles that treat single topics in a great diversity of 
ways. Thus it is borne in upon the student that, instead 
of being restricted to one approach to a subject, he may 
make his choice among a multitude. Moreover, point of 
view is made vital by the printing of two versions of “Wee 
Willie Winkie”—the one by Kipling, the other (presented 
from an entirely different angle) by a college student. Now 
every young writer has his favorite story. With “Wee 
Willie Winkie” as an example, he may retell this favorite 
from a new standpoint. Nothing could do more to teach 
him what is really excellent in literary method. 

Here and there in the selections infelicitous or even blun- 


IX 


PREFACE 


dering English intrudes. The editors have thought best to 
pass over such slips without comment. The alert student, 
however, should be expected to discover them. 

The editors express their thanks to Dr. Easley S. Jones 
for valuable suggestions during the preparation of the manu¬ 
script and for help upon the proofs while the book was in 
press, and to Miss E. R. Andrews and Miss E. C. Lyons 
of the Muhlenberg Branch of the New* York Public Library 
for kind assistance and interest in the preparation of this 
volume. They are also grateful to various publishers for 
permission to use copyright material. They acknowledge 
these permissions severally in the footnotes. 


CONTENTS 


For an arrangement of the Contents according to kinds of compo¬ 
sition see page 427. 


Paragraphs. 


Part I—Paragraphs Analyzed as to Method of 

Development. 

Introduction . 

The Proposition Is Peace. Edmund Burke . 

What Spoils Conversation. Oliver IV end ell Holmes. 

The Slow Progress of the Arts. .Charles Lamb . 

The Democracy of Socialism ....£. A. Ross . 

Wordsworth’s Place among Eng¬ 
lish Poets. Matthew Arnold . 

The Ascendancy of Business 

Ideals . E. A. Ross . 

The Four Employments for Cap¬ 
ital . Adam Smith . 

How I Killed Time during Lonely 

Vigils at Sea. Richard Henry Dana, Jr . 

Are Democracies Obstructive?.. .Charles W. Eliot . 

How the Woodpecker Uses Its 

Tail-Feathers . Maurice Thompson . 

Winds as Advertisements. John Muir . 

Call for a Reading of the Resolu¬ 
tion . Daniel Webster .. 

Common Sense. William Wirt ... 

Snow in the Sierra. John Muir . 

Wit and Humor. E. P. Whipple . 

Exemptions vs. Grants. Charles W. Eliot . 

What Is Monotony ?.. Charles Merz . 

Two Views of an Indian Village.Prawns Parkman . 


PAGE 

3 

4 
6 

7 

8 


9 

11 


12 


13 

14 

16 

18 

19 

20 

21 

22 
24 

26 

27 


XI 
































CONTENTS 


PAGE 


The Maiden Confronted by Sud¬ 
den Death . Thomas De Quincey .... 28 

Apostrophe to General Warren. .Daniel Webster . 30 

Morning in the Mountains. John Ruskin . 31 

Eating Green Peas. Elisabeth C. Gaskell .... 32 

Johnson’s First Meeting with 

Hogarth . James Boswell . 33 

Influence of the French Revolu¬ 
tion on Byron and Shelley ... .Edward Dowden . 34 

The Supremacy of Character over 

Brains and Brawn. Theodore Roosevelt .... 36 

Browbeating the Orientals. A. W. Kinglake . 37 


Part II—Paragraphs for Students to Analyse. 

The Cross-Roads Tavern and the 

Corner Grocery . Carl Van Doren . 

Lake-Bearing Rivers of the 

Sierra . John Muir . 

The Priest of Pines. John Muir . 

The Selection of Beliefs. Charles W. Eliot . 

The Poet’s Corner in Westmin¬ 
ster Abbey. Bayard Taylor . 

A Football Game at Rugby. Thomas Hughes . 

Apres Vous among Camels. A. W. Kinglake . 

Henry James’s Way with Chil¬ 
dren . Walter Tittle . 

Living in the Past. Charles Lamb . 

At Oxford in Vacation. Charles Lamb . 

Backgrounds of Song for Burns 

and Frost. Carl Van Doren . 

Greatness and Consistency. Ralph Waldo Emerson.. 

The Great Man and His Time. . .Thomas Carlyle . 

Burns a Considerable Man. Thomas Carlyle . 

Literature as a Calling in the Age 

of Johnson. Lord Macaulay ........ 

Origin of the Division of Labor. .Adam Smith . 

Folk to Whom Idleness Is Coma .Robert Louis Stevenson. 

The Schoolroom. Charles Dickens . 

The Incompetency of American 

Business Men . 'Nathaniel Peffer . 

Assignment for the Section as a Whole. 


41 

42 

43 

44 

45 

45 

46 

47 

48 

49 

49 

50 

51 
5i 

53 

54 

55 

56 

57 
57 


Xll 















































CONTENTS 

Mood, Tone, and General Effect. 


Introduction . 

My Rescue by Rats. Edgar Allan Poe . 

The Stable-Yard of a Country 

Inn on a Rainy Day. Washington Irving .... 

Night and Home . William Makepeace 

Thackeray . 

Scott’s Return to Abbotsford... ./. G. Lockhart . 

Letter to Mrs. Bixby. Abraham Lincoln . 

Death at Sea . Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

Expecting Discovery by Hostile 

Iroquois . James Fenimore Cooper. 

The Sounds Made by Screech 

Owls . H. D. Thoreau . 

Rip Van Winkle’s Return to the 

Village . Washington Irving . 

The Baby and the Universe. Arnold Bennett . 

The Monotony and Heat of the 

Desert. A. W. Kinglake . 

The Howling Dervishes. Amelia B. Edwards .... 

Outdoor Sounds at Night. Maurice Thompson . 

Dobbin’s Visit to the Ruined John 

Sedley. William Makepeace 

Thackeray . 

The Happiness of Not Being Rich Charles Lamb . 

A Music Student’s Room in Chi¬ 
cago . Willa Sibert Cather 

Teufelsdrockh’s View from His 

Tower. Thomas Carlyle . 

Assignment for the Section as a Whole. 


Keeping an Idea to the Fore. 


Introduction . 

Warren Hastings and Dayles- 


ford. Lord Macaulay 

Scene of the Trial of Warren 

Hastings . Lord Macaulay 

The Desire of Happiness Uni¬ 
versal . Horace Mann . 


PAGE 

59 

60 

61 

63 

64 

65 

66 

68 

69 

70 

71 

73 

75 

76 


79 

80 

83 

85 

88 


89 

90 

91 
94 


Xlll 





































CONTENTS 


PAGE 


A Man’s Religion All-Important. Thomas Carlyle . 95 

The Loss in Civilization’s Gains .Ralph Waid o Emerson .. 97 

The Strenuous Life. Theodore Roosevelt .... 99 

A Day’s Work Aboard Ship .... Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 103 

Our Idea of Advancement in 

Life. John Ruskin . 106 

Spain and the Netherlands. John Lothrop Motley .. . 108 

Ali Atar’s Last Fight. Washington Irving . no 

The First Stages in Making 

Camp .S' tewart Edward White .. 113 

Assignment for the Section as a Whole. 115 


Beginnings and Endings. 


Introduction . 

The Fall of the House of Usher. .Edgar Allan Poe . 

The Masque of the Red Death. .Edgar Allan Poe . 

Rasselas . Samuel Johnson . 

In the Matter of a Private. Rudyard Kipling . 

The Man Who Was. Rudyard Kipling . 

Cranford . Elizabeth C. Gaskell .... 

Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen . 

Markheim . Robert Louis Stevenson. 

A Lickpenny Lover. O. Henry . 

The Cask of Amontillado. Edgar Allan Poe . 

A Fog in Santone . O. Henry . 

The Three Musketeers. Alexandre Dumas . 

The Procurator of Judea. Anatole France . 

Assignment for the Section as a Whole. 


116 

118 

120 

123 

123 

125 

128 

130 

133 

135 

138 

139 

140 

141 
M3 


Informal Composition. 

Introduction . 144 

The Best Prospect in Scotland. .. James Boswell ......... 144 

How I Bought the Colt. Ulysses S. Grant . 146 

Persuading Johnson to Dine with 

Wilkes . James Boswell . 147 

My First Entrance into Philadel¬ 
phia . Benjamin Franklin . 149 

A Yankee Damn. Harriet Beecher Stowe.. 150 


xiv 












































CONTENTS 


Getting a Permanent Wave_ Joseph Hergesheimer ... 

Raleigh’s First Meeting with 

Elizabeth . Sir Walter Scott . 

Coleridge in the Army. Joseph Cottle . 

The Dark-Hued Image of Good 

Hope . Blair Niles . 

The Sculptor’s Model . S. Weir Mitchell . 

Applause in the Theatre. George Arliss . 

Shop Talk . Max McConn . 

Assignment for the Section as a Whole. 


Characters. 

Introduction . 

A Lone Lorn Creetur’. Charles Dickens . 

Dante . Thomas Carlyle . 

Dodd as Aguecheek . Charles Lamb . 

Seeing Mendelssohn . Bayard Taylor . 

Tom Brown’s First Meeting with 

Scud East . Thomas Hughes . 

A Quack Financier . H. G. Wells . 

Wouter Van Twiller. Washington Irving . 

James Hogg, the Ettrick Shep¬ 
herd ./. G. Lockhart . 

Beatrix Descending the Stair ...William Makepeace 

Thackeray . 

Hetty in the Dairy. George Eliot . 

Sir Roger at Church. Joseph Addison . 

The Element of Mystery in 

Whistler . Gamaliel Bradford . 

Royal Father and Royal Son .. .John Lothrop Motley ... 

John Milton’s Bedtime Olives ... Havelock Ellis . 

Miss Asphyxia Smith. Harriet Beecher Stowe .. 

English Morality . George Bernard Shaw .. 

With What Class of Men Shall 

Shelley Be Numbered?. Edward Dowden . 

The Old Practitioner and the 

Young. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Law and Lawyers. Jonathan Swift . 

Assignment for the Section as a Whole. 

xv 


PAGE 

152 

159 

163 

169 
172 
175 
177 
181 


182 

183 
185 

187 

188 

189 
192 

195 

196 

198 

200 

204 

206 

208 

210 

213 

219 

221 

223 

225 

227 















































CONTENTS 


Birds, Animals, and Insects. page 

Introduction . 228 

The Robin . James Russell Lowell... 228 

The “Dropping Song” of the 

Mocking-Bird . Maurice Thompson .... 231 

The Iniquity of Camels. Amelia B. Edwards .... 234 

An Attack of Sharks upon 

Whales . Frederick O’Brien . 235 

Account of the Treatment of His 

Hares . William Cowper . 236 

The Douglas Squirrel. John Muir . 241 

The Battle between the Black and 

the Red Ants. H.D. Thoreau . 247 

The Succession to the Queenship 

among Bees. Henri Fabre . 250 

The Bee Feeds an Impostor .... Alphonse Karr . 254 

Life on a Rosebush. Alphonse Karr . 256 

Assignment for the Section as a Whole. 261 

Observation, Travel, and Quaint Human Customs. 

Introduction . 263 

English Footpaths . Nathaniel Hawthorne .. 266 

English Hotels . Nathaniel Hawthorne .. 267 

A Strange Social Custom. Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 268 

St. Peter’s Cathedral. Bayard Taylor . 269 

They Asked Me for Bread. A. W . Kinglake . 270 

Old Dutch Tea-Parties. Washington Irving . 272 

Our Visit to a Kickapoo Village. Francis Parkman . 274 

The Bazaars of Cairo. Amelia B. Edwards .... 277 

Assignment for the Section as a Whole. 282 

Articles in Groups. 

Introduction . 285 


Group I: Learning How to Write. 

How Johnson Attained a Fluent 

and Forceful Style. James Boswell ... 

My Passion for Clearness of 

Style . Abraham Lincoln 


287 

288 


xvi 






































CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Imitating the Spectator Papers. .. Benjamin , Franklin . 288 

How I Learned to Write. Robert Louis Stevenson. 289 

My First Efforts to Write. Jack London . 292 

My Definite Beginnings as a 

Writer . Jack London . 294 

Assignment for Group I . 296 


Group II: 

Of Studies 

The Right Kind of Study 
An Assignment by Agassiz 
My Early Love for the Iliad 

My Early Reading.. 

Choosing Our Friends .... 
The Pleasures of Reading . 


Books and Study. 


Francis Bacon . 297 

Sydney Smith . 300 

N. S. Shaler . 301 

A. W. Kinglake . 304 

Jack London . 306 

John Rusk in . 308 

Charles IV. Eliot . 309 


Group III: Education and Culture. 

Culture not Disdain. William James ... 

Aim of a University Course . .. .Cardinal Newman 
The Adjustment of One’s Self to 

Conditions . Woodrow Wilson 

My Belated Education. Jack London 

Assignment for Group III . 

Group IV: War. 

The Causes of War. Jonathan Swift ., 

The Folly of War. Thomas Carlyle .. 

The Non-Military Discipline of 

Communities . William James .. 

War the Inevitable Outgrowth of 

the Complexities of Life. W. G. Sumner ... 

Assignment for Group IV. 

Group V: Hunting. 

The Buffalo of Pioneer Days... .Francis Parkman 

1. The Two Methods of Hunting Buffalo. 

2. A Buffalo Hunt . 


311 

312 


314 

3 1 5 
3 U 


318 

320 

321 

323 

324 


325 

3 2 7 


XVII 








































CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Hunting Big Game in Africa... H. Patterson . 


1. Shooting a Hippopotamus . 332 

2. An Infuriated Rhinoceros. 335 

3. A Narrow Escape . 337 

Assignment for Group V. 342 


Assignment for the Section as a Whole. 342 

Transitions, Summaries, and Good Literary 

Carpentry. 

Introduction . 343 

What I Purpose in My History of 

England . ..Lord Macaulay . 348 

The Population of England in 

1685 . Lord Macaulay . 351 

The Operation of Tattooing ... .Herman Melville . 353 

How Crusoe Made Earthen Ves¬ 
sels . Daniel Defoe . 355 

The Renaissance of the Puppet 

Play . Anne Stoddard . 358 

Causes for the American Spirit 

of Liberty . Edmund Burke . 361 

Animal Chemistry . Oliver Wendell Holmes. 368 

Sustained Literary Effort. 

Introduction . 372 

The Morning of Circus Day . .. .Booth Tarkington . 373 

Meeting the Crime Wave: A 

Comparison of Methods. Joseph Gollomh . 380 

Wee Willie Winkie. Rudyard Kipling . 396 

Wee Willie Winkie. Irene Peterson . 397 


xviii 





























THE CENTURY 
BOOK OF SELECTIONS 














. 



























THE CENTURY 
BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

PARAGRAPHS 

PART I—PARAGRAPHS ANALYZED AS TO METHOD 

OF DEVELOPMENT 

The paragraph is the smallest unit of composition in which 
one may show much real constructive power. In the sentence,, 
to be sure, one must make a certain use of this power, but the 
use is limited. A sentence is to composition what a single stroke 
with the racket is to tennis. It may send an idea to the exact 
spot one intends with the precise force and curve one desires, 
but it does not exhibit one’s resourcefulness, one’s all-round 
playing ability. To exhibit these requires a composition, in¬ 
deed many compositions. A whole composition is like an entire 
set at tennis. A paragraph is midway between sentence and 
whole composition, as a game at tennis is midway between a 
single stroke and a set. It will scarcely reveal one’s entire ca¬ 
pabilities, unless indeed they be slight; but it will give some 
indication of whether one is strong in attack, can foresee and 
thwart return attacks, varies his style of play, has a genuine 
sense of form, and not only works but works to definite and 
calculated ends. 

The most appalling, and at the same time most stimulating, 
thought that can come to the student is that every paragraph 
he writes is a photograph of his mind. The functioning of his 

3 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


brain cells shows unmistakably in the negative of those scribbled 
sheets of paper. Strength and sensitiveness are revealed as by 
daylight, falterings and defects are branded remorselessly, logic 
and irrationality are set forth where all men may see. This is 
not true of talk. One may be an intellectual anarchy, a chaos 
of murkily whirling elements of ideas, and yet through the 
interruptions and the tolerated slackness of conversation give 
somehow the impression that he possesses a modicum of gray 
matter. But when he has acquainted himself with the rudi¬ 
ments of writing, when he has had time to correct the first 
stumblings of a new method of expressing himself, he mani¬ 
fests his mental processes in every paragraph he writes. He 
can no more have a muddled mind and yet write well-rounded, 
paragraphs than he can be a tyro at tennis and yet play a 
faultless game. 

If the paragraphs are right, the whole composition is likely 
to be right, just as well-played tennis games are likely to be 
supplemented by a skilful manipulation of the set. What has 
hitherto been said is not meant in any way to minimize the 
importance of the sentence or of the theme as a whole. Sentence 
and theme must both be studied carefully. But the paragraph 
is the point of attack for him who would learn to do construc¬ 
tive writing. He must make his paragraphs clear and vigorous, 
logical and pleasing. He must give them firmness of organiza¬ 
tion. 

THE PROPOSITION IS PEACE * 

Edmund Burke 

If a paragraph has unity, the central thought of that paragraph 
can usually be compressed into a single sentence. Often the thought 
is so compressed by the author. It is the more likely to be if the 
paragraph is expository. 

* From “Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies.” 

4 


PARAGRAPHS 


The topic sentence may come at the beginning. The development 
of the paragraph may then come in two stages: (i) false interpre¬ 
tations of the meaning of the topic sentence may be set aside; (2) 
the true interpretation may be stated. 

[Topic sentence ] The proposition is peace. [Misinterpre¬ 
tation forestalled ] Not peace through the medium of war; not 
peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless 
negotiations; not peace to arise out of universal discord fomented, 
from principle, in all parts of the Empire; not peace to depend 
on the juridical determination of perplexing questions, or the 
precise marking the shadowy boundaries of a complex govern¬ 
ment. f Correct interpretation given\ It is simple peace; sought 
in its natural course, and in its ordinary haunts. It is peace 
sought in the spirit of peace, and laid in principles purely 
pacific. I propose, by removing the ground of the difference, 
and by restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of the 
colonies in the Mother Country, to give permanent satisfaction 
to your people; and (far from a scheme of ruling by discord) 
to reconcile them to each other in the same act and by the bond 
of the very same interest which reconciles them to British 
government. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a paragraph on one of these topics, employing the general 
method followed by Burke: 

How to Win the Confidence of People 

How to Win the Good Will of One’s Fellows 

What It Means to Be a Loyal Student of This College (School) 

What a Student Paper Should Stand For 

What I Really Meant by What I Said 

One Way Students Spend Money Foolishly 

The Best Way to Dispose of Old Clothes 

How My Class Would Profit (Waste Its Time) if Granted an 
Hour a Week for Class Meetings 
What I Really Intended to Do (refute the charge of having in¬ 
tended to do something else). 

5 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


WHAT SPOILS CONVERSATION* 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

A paragraph may open, not with a topic sentence, but with a 
question to which the rest of the paragraph becomes the answer. 
The development is likely to consist (i) in stating and rejecting 
wrong answers, (2) in explaining the right answer. 

A general idea may be clinched, particularly at the close of the 
paragraph that embodies it, by means of a concrete comparison. 

— [Topic question] What are the great faults of conversa¬ 
tion? [Possible answers] Want of ideas, want of words, want 
of manners, are the principal ones, I suppose you think. I 
don’t doubt it, but [The right answer] I will tell you what I 
have found spoil more good talks than anything else;—long 
arguments on special points between people who differ on the 
fundamental principles upon which these points depend. No 
men can have satisfactory relations with each other until they 
have agreed on certain ultimata of belief not to be disturbed in 
ordinary conversation, and unless they have sense enough to 
trace the secondary questions depending upon these ultimate 
beliefs to their source. [Comparisons] In short, just as a 
written constitution is essential to the best social order, so a 
code of finalities is a necessary condition to profitable talk be¬ 
tween two persons. Talking is like playing on the harp; there 
is as much in laying the hand on the strings to stop their vi¬ 
brations as in twanging them to bring out their music. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Formulate a question on one of these topics, and devote a para¬ 
graph to its answer: 

Real Politeness 

A College Man’s Debt to Society 

How Parents Should Treat Children 

How Children Should Treat Parents 

* From The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. 

6 


PARAGRAPHS 


The Right Amount of Sugar for One’s Coffee 
The Motion Picture Play I Enjoyed Most 
The Events That Should Be Included in a Track Meet 
Why I Am in College (School) 

What I Owe This College (School) as a Student. 


THE SLOW PROGRESS OF THE ARTS* 

Charles Lamb 

The topic sentence may be withheld, particularly in narrative, 
until the end of the paragraph, where it may sum up or give point 
to the antecedent particulars. 

The following paragraph is the culmination of an account of 
how a Chinese son and father had through the accidental burn¬ 
ing of their house discovered that roast pig makes better eating 
than raw pig, had been brought to trial for their offense against 
custom, and had been acquitted when the jurymen learned that roast 
pig really is edible. 

[Particulars and details] The judge, who was a shrewd 
fellow, winked at the manifest iniquity of the decision; and, 
when the court was dismissed, went privily, and bought up 
all the pigs that could be had for love or money. In a few 
days his Lordship’s town house was observed to be on fire. 
The thing took wing, and now there was nothing to be seen 
but fires in every direction. Fuel and pigs grew enormously 
dear all over the district. The insurance offices one and all 
shut up shop. People built slighter and slighter every day, 
until it was feared that the very science of architecture would 
in no long time be lost to the world. Thus this custom of 
firing houses continued, till in process of time, ' says my 
manuscript, a sage arose, like our Locke, who made a dis¬ 
covery, that the flesh of swine, or indeed of any other animal, 
might be cooked (burnt, as they called it) without the necessity 
of consuming a whole house to dress it. Then first began the 

* From “A Dissertation upon Roast Pig” in the Essays of Elia. 

7 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


rude form of a gridiron. Roasting by the string, or spit, came 
in a century or two later, I forget in whose dynasty. [Conclu¬ 
sion: topic sentence] By such slow degrees, concludes the 
manuscript, do the most useful, and seemingly the most obvious 
arts, make their way among mankind. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a paragraph on one of these topics, explaining or gathering 
up the thought that underlies the particulars in a topic sentence at 
the close: 

What Our Discussion Came To 

An Abundance of Gossip on a Poverty of Happenings 
Recitation Time and an Unprepared Lesson (tell what the stu¬ 
dent finally resolved to do) 

How We at Length Attempted to Cross the Swollen Stream 
The Proper Time to Pick Fruit (consider various possible uses 
for the fruit—home consumption, preserving, shipping, etc.) 
How We Got the Baby Still for the Photographer 
The Ideal Way to Treat a Visiting Team 
How to Make a Living Room Livable 
A Fable and Its Moral. 


THE DEMOCRACY OF SOCIALISM* 

E. A. Ross 

The topic sentence may come at both the beginning and the end, 
explanatory matter being inserted between. 

[Topic sentence] The advance of socialism in Western 
countries is simply the later phase of the world wide drift 
toward democracy. [ Explanation ] Although possessed of the 
ballot, the working class has so far done little for itself because 
laborers have persisted in accepting and acting on the economic 
philosophy of their employers. But now there exists a full- 
fledged, working class philosophy—with press, literature, pro- 

* Changing America, pages 30-31. Reprinted by permission of the Century Co. 

8 


PARAGRAPHS 


gram and propaganda—which is dignified by the support of 
scholars, scientists, artists, prelates, publicists, journalists and 
statesmen. This philosophy calls black that which the reigning 
business-class philosophy calls white, and calls white that 
which the other calls black. It declares that the workers, not 
the idlers, are the cornerstone of society and insists that the 
first thing to be considered is livelihoods, not profits. However 
biased and wrong-headed this economic philosophy may be, it 
does give the working man courage to take a line of his own 
and develop Kis own attitude toward the social system the 
possessing class have framed. Through his own organs and 
orators he learns of damning facts once kept from him and 
becomes critical, self-assertive and demanding. [Topic sen¬ 
tence repeated in different words ] The spread of socialism, 
then, is but the latest phase of the universal tendency for the 
people to endeavor to control government for their own benefit. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write on one of these topics a paragraph which shall open with 
a topic sentence and close with a repetition or rephrasing of that 
sentence: 

The Greatest Pest to the Crop with Which I Am Most Familiar 

The Underlying Principle of Radio 

How We Know That Water Is a Compound 

The Greatest Handicap to Successful Study 

The Chief Obstacle to Cooperation in My Group 

What the Church Means to Me. 

WORDSWORTH’S PLACE AMONG ENGLISH POETS * 

Matthew Arnold 

Instead of giving the topic sentence at the very outset, you may 
have to lead up to it. This is especially true in paragraphs which 
do not stand alone, but introduce new phases of a subject already 
partly discussed. 

* From the Preface to Wordsworth’s Poems. 

9 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


[.Introductory sentences] Wordsworth has been in his grave 
for some thirty years, and certainly his lovers and admirers 
cannot flatter themselves that this great and steady light of 
glory as yet shines over him. He is not fully recognized at 
home; he is not recognized at all abroad. [Topic sentence] 
Yet I firmly believe that the poetical performance of Words¬ 
worth is, after that of Shakespeare and Milton, of which all 
the world now recognizes the worth, undoubtedly the most 
considerable in our language from the Elizabethan age to the 
present time. [Particulars and details] Chaucer is anterior; 
and on other grounds, too, he cannot well be brought into the 
comparison. But taking the roll of our chief poetical names, 
besides Shakespeare and Milton, from the age of Elizabeth 
downwards, and going through it,—Spenser, Dryden, Pope, 
Gray, Goldsmith, Cowper, Burns, Coleridge, Scott, Campbell, 
Moore, Byron, Shelley, Keats (I mention those only who are 
dead),—I think it certain that Wordsworth’s name deserves 
to stand, and will finally stand, above them all. [Concession] 
Several of the poets named have gifts and excellences w T hich 
Wordsworth has not. [Topic sentence repeated] But tak¬ 
ing the performance of each as a whole, I say that Words¬ 
worth seems to me to have left a body of poetical work superior 
in power, in interest, in the qualities which give enduring fresh¬ 
ness, to that which any one of the others has left. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Lead up to the topic sentence in a paragraph on one of these 
themes: 

A bad situation may often be redeemed. 

We may go around difficulties that we cannot get through. 

An ill-written book may sometimes have a wholesome influ¬ 
ence. 

The countenance is not always an index to character. 

Criminals are sometimes the victims of environment. 

The best team does n’t always win. 

TO 


PARAGRAPHS 


Beggars may sometimes be choosers. 

A girl is (is not) justified in using make-up. 


THE ASCENDANCY OF BUSINESS IDEALS* 

E. A. Ross 

The topic of the paragraph may be given in the opening sentence, 
elaborated and applied in the body of the paragraph, and restated 
in the closing sentence in a backhanded way so as to indicate un¬ 
expected consequences. 

[Topic sentence] In sooth, business men are in the saddle. 
[Elaboration of topic ] It is settled that no man who does not 
bear the O.K. of business men can ever be elected president. 
A candidate’s trump card is the promise of a “business” ad¬ 
ministration. “Success” has comes to mean the same as “busi¬ 
ness success,” that is, making money. [Comparisons] Often 
one hears “You can’t run business on religious principles,” but 
never “You can’t run religion on business principles.” The 
highest compliment you can pay a philanthropy, an educational 
scheme, or a missionary project is to pronounce it “business¬ 
like”; whereas a man is insulted if you pronounce his business 
“philanthropic,” or “educational,” or “missionary-like.” 
[ Topic repeated in reverse form ] We have a new moral type— 
the sheep in wolf’s clothing—for the employer who provides 
rest-rooms and seats with backs for his working girls feels 
obliged to dissemble his humanity by pretending he does it 
“simply to augment output!” 

ASSIGNMENT 

In a paragraph on one of these topics give in the concluding 
sentence a new twist or direction to the thought: 

Sauce for the Goose Is Sauce for the Gander 

It Is Cheaper to Buy the More Expensive Article 

* Changing America, pages 87-88. Reprinted by permission of the Century Co. 

II 


CENTURY ROOK OF SELECTIONS 


College as a Character Builder 

Aunt Zenobia’s Misplaced Spectacles 

The Shortest Distance between Two Points 

The Proof of the Pudding 

Mamie Spoke Unkindly of No One 

Youngsters Should Be Turned Loose with Other Youngsters. 

THE FOUR EMPLOYMENTS FOR CAPITAL* 

Adam Smith 

The material of a paragraph may require that the development be 
made by listing items one after another. Some comment on each 
item is normally expected. 

[Introductory statement] A capital may be employed in 
four different ways: [ Enumeration ] either, first, in procuring 
the rude produce annually required for the use and consumption 
of the society; or, secondly, in manufacturing and preparing 
that rude produce for immediate use and consumption; or, 
thirdly, in transporting either the rude or manufactured produce 
from the places where they abound to those where they are 
wanted; or, lastly, in dividing particular portions of either into 
such small parcels as suit the occasional demands of those who 
want them. [Comment] In the first way are employed the 
capitals of all those who undertake the improvement or culti¬ 
vation of lands, mines, or fisheries; in the second, those of all 
master manufacturers; in the third, those of all wholesale 
merchants; and in the fourth, those of all retailers. [Com¬ 
pleteness of enumeration asserted] It is difficult to conceive 
that a capital should be employed in any way which may not 
be classed under some one or other of those four. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Use the enumerative method of paragraph development with one 
of these topics: 

* The Wealth of Nations, Book II, Chapter V. 


12 


PARAGRAPHS 


The Infielders of a Baseball Team 

The Types of Aircraft 

The Successive Steps in Baking a Pie 

The Parts of Ancient Armor (a Modern Revolver) 

The Chief Uses of Electricity 

Disagreeable Medicines I Have Taken 

Types of Cooperative Enterprises 

uhe Reasons for Rejecting the Plan (Proposal) 

Trees of the Timber Line 

The Advantages of Lace over Button Shoes. 

HOW I KILLED TIME DURING LONELY VIGILS 

AT SEA* 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

The interest of a paragraph may lie in making known the particu¬ 
lars involved in some general statement. 

[General statements ] I commenced a deliberate system of 
time-killing, which united some profit with a cheering up of 
the heavy hours. As soon as I came on deck, and took my 
place and regular walk, I began with repeating over to myself 
a string of matters which I had in my memory, in regular order. 
[Particulars ] First, the multiplication table and the tables of 
weights and measures; then the states of the Union, with their 
capitals; the counties of England, with their shire towns; the 
kings of England in their order; and a large part of the peerage, 
which I committed from an almanac that we had on board; 
and then the Kanaka numerals. This carried me through my 
facts, and being repeated deliberately, with long intervals, often 
eked out the two first bells. Then came the ten commandments; 
the thirty-ninth chapter of Job, and a few other passages from 
Scripture. The next in the order, that I never varied from* 
came Cowper’s Castaway, which was a great favorite with me; 
the solemn measure and gloomy character of which, as well as 

* Tzi'O Years Before the Mast, Chapter XXXII. 

13 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


the incident that it was founded upon, made it well suited to 
a lonely watch at sea. Then his lines to Mary, his address 
to the jackdaw, and a short extract from Table Talk (I 
abounded in Cowper, for I happened to have a volume of his 
poems in my chest); “Ule et nefasto” from Horace, and 
Goethe’s Erl King. After’ I had got through these, I allowed 
myself a more general range among everything that I could 
remember, both in prose and verse. In this way, with an 
occasional break by relieving the wheel, heaving the log, and 
going to the scuttle-butt for a drink of water, the longest watch 
was passed away; and I was so regular in my silent recitations, 
that if there was no interruption by the ship’s duty, I could tell 
very nearly the number of bells by my progress. 

ASSIGNMENT 

By supplying particulars expand one of these statements into a 
paragraph: 

I passed a busy afternoon. 

My boyhood was normal. 

We girls were happiest at recess. 

My dog is the finest ever. 

It was the crankiest car I ever tried to run. 

Youngsters have a hard time of it. 

I set out to earn my first dollar. 

With care one may make his speaking voice pleasant. 

It was dull work trying to pass the time at that railroad station. 

ARE DEMOCRACIES OBSTRUCTIVE?* 

Charles W. Eliot 

A paragraph may be developed by giving specific instances and 
examples to bear out a general assertion. 

[Introductory statement] An argument against democracy, 
which evidently had great weight with Sir Henry Maine, be- 

. * From “The Working of the American Democracy” in American Contribu¬ 
tions to Civilisation. Reprinted by permission of the Century Co. 

14 


PARAGRAPHS 


cause he supposed it to rest upon the experience of mankind, 
is stated as follows: Progress and reformation have always 
been the work of the few, and have been opposed by the many; 
therefore democracies will be obstructive. [General statement ] 
This argument is completely refuted by the first century of the 
American democracy, alike in the field of morals and jurispru¬ 
dence, and the field of manufactures and trade. [Supporting 
instances and examples ] Nowhere, for instance, has the great 
principle of religious toleration been so thoroughly put in 
practice as in the United States; nowhere have such well-meant 
and persistent efforts been made to improve the legal status of 
w T omen; nowhere has the conduct of hospitals, asylums, re¬ 
formatories, and prisons been more carefully studied;, nowhere 
have legislative remedies for acknowledged abuses and evils 
been more promptly and perseveringly sought. There was a 
certain plausibility in the idea that the multitude, who live by 
labor in established modes, would be opposed to inventions 
which would inevitably cause industrial revolutions; but 
American experience completely upsets this notion. For 
promptness ii making physical forces and machinery do the 
work of men, the people of the United States surpass incon¬ 
testably all other peoples. The people that invented and intro¬ 
duced with perfect commercial success the river steamboat, the 
cotton-gin, the parlor-car and the sleeping-car, the grain- 
elevator, the street railway—both surface and elevated—the 
telegraph, the telephone, the rapid printing-press, the cheap 
book and newspaper, the sewing-machine, the steam fire-engine, 
agricultural machinery, the pipe-lines for natural oil and gas, 
and machine-made clothing, boots, furniture, tools, screws, 
wagons, fire-arms, and watches—this is not a people to vote down 
or hinder labor-saving invention or beneficent industrial revo¬ 
lution. The fact is that in a democracy the interests of the 
greater number will ultimately prevail, as they should. It was 
the stage-drivers and inn-keepers, not the multitude, who wished 

i5 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


to suppress the locomotive; it is some publishers and typo¬ 
graphical unions, not the mass of the people, who wrongly 
imagine that they have an interest in making books dearer than 
they need be. Furthermore, a just liberty of combination and 
perfect equality before the law, such as prevail in a democracy, 
enable men or companies to engage freely in new undertakings 
at their own risk, and bring them to triumphant success, if 
success be in them, whether the multitude approve them or not. 
The consent of the multitude is not necessary to the success of 
a printing-press which prints twenty thousand copies of a news¬ 
paper in an hour, or of a machine cutter which cuts out twenty 
overcoats at one chop. [General statement repeated in other 
words] In short, the notion that democracy will hinder re¬ 
ligious, political, and social reformation and progress, or restrain 
commercial and industrial improvement, is a chimera. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Supply the instances or examples necessary to make a complete 
and well-reasoned paragraph on one of these topics: 

My observation convinces me that animals reason (do not reason). 

The student whose grades are low is not necessarily dull or lazy. 

My municipality could do more for the children. 

A person may imagine he is seriously ill when he is n’t. 

There is much more kindness in the world than we think. 

Opportunity awaits him who will make it. 

There is still much religious prejudice abroad. 


HOW THE WOODPECKER USES ITS 
TAIL-FEATHERS * 

Maurice Thompson 

A paragraph may contain, at the outset or elsewhere, a statement 
that indicates the direction the thought will take. The promised 
unfolding of the thought must of course follow. 

* From “A Red-Headed Family” in By-Ways and Bird Notes. 

16 


PARAGRAPHS 

This device is often adopted in explaining the use of some object, 
organ, or member. 

[Statement that indicates direction] The stiff pointed tail- 
feathers of the woodpecker serve the bird a turn which I have 
never seen noted by any ornithologist. [Follow-up statements] 
When the bird must strike a hard blow with its bill, it does 
not depend solely upon its neck and head; but bracing the 
points of its tail-feathers against the tree, and rising to the 
full length of its short, powerful legs, and drawing back its 
body, head, and neck to the farthest extent, it dashes its bill 
home with all the force of its entire bodily weight and muscle. 
[Instances and illustrations] I have seen the ivory-bill, strik¬ 
ing thus, burst off from almost flinty-hard dead trees fragments 
of wood half as large as my hand; and once in the Cherokee 
hills of Georgia I watched a pileated woodpecker ( Hylotomus 
pileatus) dig a hole to the very heart of an exceedingly tough, 
green, mountain hickory tree, in order to reach a nest of winged 
ants. The point of ingress of the insects was a small hole in 
a punk knot; but the bird, by hopping down the tree tail- 
foremost and listening, located the nest about five feet below, 
and there it proceeded to bore through the gnarled, cross-grained 
wood to the hollow. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Indicate that you will explain the function, use, or mode of oper¬ 
ation of one of the following. Then explain it. 

The kangaroo’s tail 
The elephant’s trunk 
Glands 
Saliva 

The appendix 
The finger nails 
The eye brows 
A private secretary 
The preface of a book 
A vacuum cleaner. 


17 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


WINDS AS ADVERTISEMENTS* 

John Muir 

Sometimes the way to drive home the idea of a paragraph is by 
means of an illustration. 

Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or 
little we may be able to read them; telling their wanderings even 
by their scents alone,. Mariners detect the flowery perfume of 
land-winds far at sea, and sea-winds carry the fragrance of 
dulse and tangle far inland, where it is quickly recognized, 
though mingled with the scents of a thousand land-flowers. As 
an illustration of this, I may tell here that I breathed sea-air 
on the Firth of Forth, in Scotland, while a boy; then was taken 
to Wisconsin^ where I remained nineteen years; then, without 
in all this time having breathed one breath of the sea, I walked 
quietly, alone, from the middle of the Mississippi Valley to the 
Gulf of Mexico, on a botanical excursion and while in Florida, 
far from the coast, my attention wholly bent on the splendid 
tropical vegetation about me, I suddenly recognized a sea • 
breeze, as it came sifting through the palmettos and blooming 
vine-tangles, which at once awakened and set free a thousand 
dormant associations, and made me a boy again in Scotland, 
as if all the intervening years had been annihilated. 

ASSIGNMENT 

By means of a clear and careful illustration round out a para¬ 
graph on one of these statements: 

An innocent person may be suspected. 

One may find out marvelous things in a chemical laboratory. 

“Shooting” birds ("wild animals) with a camera is a fascinating 
pastime. 

We are more likely to tell our secrets to strangers than to daily 
associates. 

* The Mountains of California, Chapter X. Reprinted by permission of the 
Century Co. 

18 


PARAGRAPHS 


It does n’t pay to be too sure about the weather. 

The middleman, rather than the producer, is the man who makes 
the profit. 

CALL FOR A READING OF THE RESOLUTION* 

Daniel Webster 

A paragraph may be developed by means of a fundamental image 
rather than a mere illustration. In exposition, a fundamental image 
is a figure of speech sufficiently apt and extended to illuminate the 
idea as a whole. 

Webster’s “Reply to Hayne’’ formed part of a complex debate 
which largely ignored the resolution supposed to be under discus¬ 
sion. The speaker’s first task was to give the Senate its bearings. 

Mr. President:—When the mariner has been tossed for many 
days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally 
avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance 
of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the 
elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate 
this prudence, and, before we float on the waves of this debate, 
refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least 
be able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading 
of the resolution. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Develop a paragraph on the basis of one of these fundamental 
images: 

Sleep is the winding up of the run-down clocks of our bodies. 

It has been said that beginning to read a German prose sentence 
is like putting to sea with sealed orders. 

The Turk has been called the Sick Man of Europe. 

His mental processes are like involuntary somersaults. 

To talk with that man is to travel through far realms of thought. 

President Wilson once said that in the modern college the side¬ 
shows have swallowed the main circus. 

* From “Reply to Hayne.” 

19 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


COMMON SENSE* 

William Wirt 

The development of a paragraph may consist in laying down rea¬ 
sons for considering a given statement true. 

Here the statement is such that, if left unsupported, it might 
seem questionable or even incredible. To justify it the writer must 
show how much is involved in the apparently simple quality he is 
discussing. 

[.Paradoxical assertion ] Common sense is a much rarer 
quality than genius. This may sound to you a little paradoxical 
at first, but you will find it true; [Reason] for common sense 
is not l as superficial thinkers are apt to suppose, a mere nega¬ 
tive faculty: it is a positive faculty, and one of the highest 
power. It is this faculty that instructs us when to speak, 
when to be silent, when to act, when to be still; and, moreover, 
it teaches us what to speak and what to suppress, what to do 
and what to forbear. Now, pause a moment to reflect on the 
number of faculties which must be combined to constitute this 
common sense: a rapid and profound foresight to calculate the 
consequences of what is to be said or done, a rapid circumspec¬ 
tion and extensive comprehension so as to be sure of taking 
in all the circumstances which belong to the case and missing 
no figure in this arithmetic of the mind, and an accuracy of 
decision which must be as quick as lightning, so as not to let 
the occasion slip. See what a knowledge of life, either by 
experience or intuition, and what a happy constitutional poise 
between the passions and the reason, or what a powerful self- 
command all enter into the composition of that little, demure, 
quiet, unadmired, and almost despised thing called common 
sense. It pretends to no brilliancy, for it possesses none; it 
has no ostentation, Tor it has nothing to show that the world 
admires. The powerful and constant action of the intellect, 

* From a letter to Wirt’s daughter Elizabeth. 


20 


PARAGRAPHS 


which makes its nature, is unobserved even by the proprietor; 
for every thing is done with intuitive ease, with a sort of 
unconscious felicity. See, then, the quick and piercing sagacity, 
the prophetic penetration, the wide comprehension, and the 
prompt and accurate judgment, which combine to constitute 
common sense, which is as inestimably valuable as the solar 
light and as little thought of. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Write a paragraph on one of these topics: 

Why We Should Use Home Products 

Why I Will (Won’t) Tell on the Student Who Cheats 

Why Stokes Went to Another College 

Why I Prefer the - to Other Typewriters. 

2. Frame a bold statement about one of these topics, and then 
fortify it with evidence and reasons: 

Being Unarmed the Best Protection 

Readiness for War an Insurance of Peace 

The Comparative Worth of Collar Buttons and Diamonds 

The Safest Game a Bold* One 

The Folly of Being Too* Careful 

Neglect Ye the Stitch in Time* 

The Chief Problem Confronting Our Student Body. 


SNOW IN THE SIERRA* 

John Muir 

A paragraph may be developed through indicating the effects (or 
results) of a cause. The cause is sometimes explicitly stated, some¬ 
times informally implied. 

[Cause] Every winter the High Sierra and the middle 
forest region get snow in glorious abundance, and even the foot¬ 
hills are at times whitened. [Results] Then all the range 

* The Mountains of California, Chapter i. Reprinted by permission of the 
Century Co. 


21 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


looks like a vast beveled wall of purest marble. The rough 
places are then made smooth, the death and decay of the year 
is covered gently and kindly, and the ground seems as clean 
as the sky. And though silent in its flight from the clouds, 
and when it is taking its place on rock, or tree, or grassy 
meadow, how soon the gentle snow finds a voice! Slipping 
from the heights, gathering in avalanches, it booms and roars 
like thunder, and makes a glorious show as it sweeps down the 
mountain-side, arrayed in long, silken streamers and wreathing, 
swirling films of crystal dust. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Embody cause and effect (or result) in a paragraph on one of 
these topics: 

A Nasty Fall 

Why It Was Necessary to Spray the Fruit Trees 

That Bumper Crop 

How Flagerty Got the Nomination 

One of Burbank’s Achievements 

A Benefit to the Community 

One of the Ways I Improved My Health. 

WIT AND HUMOR 
Edwin P. Whipple 

The development of a paragraph may consist in setting two things 
in elaborate contrast. At need it may formally define them, perhaps 
following the definitions with concrete or even homely illustrations 
of what the things involve. 

[ Definitions ] Wit was originally a general name for all 
the intellectual powers, meaning the faculty which kens, per¬ 
ceives, knows, understands; it was gradually narrowed in its 
signification to express merely the resemblance between ideas; 
and lastly, to note that resemblance when it occasioned ludicrous 
surprise. It marries ideas lying wide apart, by a sudden jerk 

22 


PARAGRAPHS 


of the understanding. Humor originally meant moisture, a 
signification it metaphorically retains, for it is the very juice 
of the mind, oozing from the brain, and enriching and ferti¬ 
lizing wherever it falls. [Elaborated contrast) Wit exists by 
antipathy; humor, by sympathy. Wit laughs at things; humor 
laughs with them. Wit lashes external appearances, or cun¬ 
ningly exaggerates single foibles into character; humor glides 
into the heart of its object, looks lovingly on the infirmities it 
detects, and represents the whole man. Wit is abrupt, darting, 
scornful, and tosses its analogies in your face; humor is slow 
and shy, insinuating its fun into your heart. Wit is negative, 
analytical, destructive; humor is creative. The couplets of 
Pope are witty, but Sancho Panza is a humorous creation. Wit, 
when earnest, has the earnestness of passion, seeking to destroy; 
humor has the earnestness of affection, and would lift up what 
is seemingly low, into our charity and love. Wit, bright, rapid, 
and blasting as the lightning, flashes, strikes, and vanishes in 
an instant; humor, warm and all-embracing as the sunshine, 
bathes its objects in a genial and abiding light. Wit implies 
hatred or contempt of folly and crime, produces its effects by 
brisk shocks of surprise, uses the whip of scorpions and the 
branding-iron,—stabs, stings, pinches, tortures, goads, teases, 
corrodes, undermines; humor implies a sure conception of the 
beautiful, the majestic, and the true, by whose light it surveys 
and shapes their opposites. It is a humane influence, softening 
with mirth the ragged inequalities of existence,—promoting 
tolerant views of life,—bridging over the spaces which separate 
the lofty from the lowly, the great from the humble. Old Dr. 
Fuller’s remark, that a negro is “the image of God cut in 
ebony,” is humorous; Horace Smith’s inversion of it, that the 
taskmaster is “the image of the devil cut in ivory,” is witty. 
Wit can coexist with fierce and malignant passions; but humor 
demands good feeling and fellow-feeling,—feeling not merely 
for what is above us, but for what is around and beneath us. 

23 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


ASSIGNMENT 

Consult the dictionary and frame definitions of the two mem¬ 
bers of one of the following items. Incorporate these definitions in 
the opening sentences of a paragraph which shall then contrast the 
two members as concretely as possible. 


Stocks and Bonds 
Weeds and Flowers 
Fruits and Vegetables 
Egoism and Egotism 


Wages and Salary 
Character and Reputation 
Prettiness and Beauty 
Learning and Knowledge. 


EXEMPTIONS VS. GRANTS * 

Charles W. Eliot 

Two things may be contrasted and distinguished without the aid 
of dictionary definitions. Especially is this true of public policies. 

[Introduction] It has been often asserted that to exempt 
an institution from taxation is the same thing as to grant it 
money directly from the public treasury. [Topic statement] 
This statement is sophistical and fallacious. [Concession] It 
is true that the immediate effect on the public treasury is in 
dollars and cents the same, whether Harvard University be 
taxed $50,000, and then get a grant of $50,000, or be exempted 
from taxes to the amount of $50,000, and get no grant. The 
immediate effect on the budget of the university would also be 
the same. [Topic idea repeated] The proximate effects of 
these two methods of State action in favor of religion, education, 
and charity are however unlike—so unlike, indeed, that one is 
a safe method, while the other is an unsafe method in the 
long run, though it may be justifiable under exceptional cir¬ 
cumstances. [Distinction through contrast] The exemption 
method is comprehensive, simple, and automatic; the grant 
method, as it has been exhibited in this country, requires special 

* From “The Exemptions from Taxation” in American Contributions to 
Civilization. Reprinted by permission of the Century Co. 

24 


PARAGRAPHS 


legislation of a peculiarly dangerous sort, a legislation which 
inflames religious quarrels, gives occasion for acrimonious de¬ 
bates, and tempts to jobbery. The exemption method leaves the 
trustees of the fostered institutions untrammeled in their action, 
and untempted to unworthy acts or mean compliances. The 
grant method, as practised here, puts them in the position of 
importunate suitors for the public bounty, or, worse, converts 
them into ingenious and unscrupulous assailants of the public 
treasury. Finally and chiefly,—and to this point I ask special 
attention,—the exemption method fosters public spirit, while 
the grant method, persevered in, annihilates it. The State says 
to the public-spirited benefactor, “You devote a part of your 
private property forever to certain public uses; you subscribe 
to build a church, for example, or you endow an academy; we 
agree not to take a portion of the income of that property every 
year for other public uses, such as the maintenance of schoolSj 
prisons, and highways.” That is the whole significance of the 
exemption of any endowment from taxation. The State agrees 
that no part of the income of property, once private, which a 
former generation, or the present generation, has devoted forever 
to some particular public use, shall be diverted by the State to 
other public uses. The exemption .method is emphatically an 
encouragement to public benefactors. On the contrary, the 
grant method extinguishes public spirit. No private person 
thinks of contributing to the support of an institution which 
has once got firmly saddled on the public treasury. The ex¬ 
emption method fosters the public virtues of self-respect and 
reliance; the grant method leads straight to an abject dependence 
upon that superior power—Government. ‘The proximate effects 
of the two methods of State action are as different as well-being 
from pauperism, as republicanism from communism. It de¬ 
pends upon the form which the action of the State takes, and 
upon the means which must be used to secure its favor, whether 
the action of the State be on the whole wholesome or pernicious. 

25 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


The exemption is wholesome, while the direct grant is, in the 
long run, pernicious. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Devote a paragraph to showing the difference in nature or effect 
of the two members indicated in one of these topics: 

Collections vs. Entertainments as a Means of Raising Money 
for Charitable Purposes 

A Good Fellow and a Fellow Who Is Good for Something 

A Bright Student and a Good Student 

Precaution vs. Exercise as a Means of Preserving Health 

The Right Way and the Wrong Way to Enlist Student Support 
for Athletics (Debating, Dramatics, the Spirit of Scholar¬ 
ship) 

Frankness vs. Rudeness 

Two Things That People Confuse 

The Difference between Going to High School and Going to 
College. 


WHAT IS MONOTONY?* 

Charles jMerz 

Definition may be informal rather than formal. 

I 

What is monotony, anyway? Are we certain in what degree 
it is the monotony of the kind of work a man does, and in what 
degree it is the monotony of being forced to do any kind of 
work at all? In what degree it is the monotony of the job 
itself, and in what degree the monotony of meager outside in¬ 
terests, with little leisure to enjoy them? The wife of the 
tenement-dweller has a more varied workday than her husband 
in his factory, cooking, sweeping, washing, ironing, rescuing 
her ragamuffin children; but probably most of us believe that 
longer hours and fewer contacts with the outside world make 
her life more of a grind than his. 

* From “Prudence Militant,” in Century Magazine, May 1923. Reprinted 
by permission. 


26 


PARAGRAPHS 

ASSIGNMENT 

Devote a paragraph to informal definition of one of the fol¬ 
lowing : 

A Good Sport 
A Good Time 
Being Well Off 
The Right Sort of Dad 
A Dull Lecture 
A Prig 
' A Sissy 

American (as distinguished from Mexican, Canadian) 

Good Taste in Dress. 

TWO VIEWS OF AN INDIAN VILLAGE* 
Francis Parkman 

Contrast may be emotional rather than intellectual. In that 
case it usually foregoes the privilege (see “Wit and Humor,” pages 
22-23, and “Exemptions vs. Grants,” pages 24-26) of being made 
piecemeal. Instead, it presents one scene and mood in its entirety, 
and then the contrasting scene and mood in its entirety. 

Note the splendid concreteness of the final sentence in this selec¬ 
tion. 

When the sun was yet an hour high, it was a gay scene in the 
village. The warriors stalked sedately among the lodges, or 
along the margin of the stream, or walked out to visit the 
bands of horses that were feeding over the prairie. Half the 
population deserted the close and heated lodges and betook 
themselves to the water; and here you might see boys and girls, 
and young squaws, splashing, swimming, and diving, beneath 
the afternoon sun, with merry screams and laughter. But when 
the sun was resting above the broken peaks, and the purple 
mountains threw their shadows for miles over the prairies; 
when our old tree basked peacefully in the horizontal rays, and 
the swelling plains and scattered groves were softened into a 

* The Oregon Trail, Chapter XI. 


27 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


tranquil beauty,—then the scene around our tent was worthy 
of a Salvator. Savage figures, with quivers at their backs, and 
guns, lances, or tomahawks in their hands, .sat on horseback, 
motionless as statues, their arms ‘crossed on their breasts and 
their eyes fixed in a steady unwavering gaze upon us. Others 
stood erect, wrapped from head to foot in their long white 
robes of buffalo-hide. Others sat together on the grass, holding 
their shaggy horses by a rope, with their dark busts exposed 
to view as they suffered their robes to fall from their shoulders. 
Others again stood carelessly among the throng, with nothing 
to conceal the matchless symmetry of their forms. There was 
one in particular, a ferocious fellow, named The Mad Wolf, 
who, with the bow in his hand and the quiver at his back, 
might have seemed, but for his face, the Pythian Apollo him¬ 
self. Such a figure rose before the imagination of West, when 
on first seeing the Belvedere in the Vatican, he exclaimed, “By 
God, a Mohawk!” 

ASSIGNMENT 

Embody in a paragraph the emotional contrast called for in one 
of these topics: 

Circus Day and the Day After 

An Old Scene Revisited 

When I Slipped Away from Home to Go Fishing 

View from My Window at Noonday and at Midnight 

Our Playgrounds in September and in February 

Before and After Taking—a Whipping 

When I Mistook the Salt for Sugar 

Why Spring (Summer, Autumn, Winter) Is My Favorite Season. 

THE MAIDEN CONFRONTED BY SUDDEN DEATH * 

Thomas De Quincey 

This paragraph, like the preceding but more concisely than the 
preceding, employs emotional contrast. Its context is as follows: 

* English Mail Coach, Section u. 

28 


PARAGRAPHS 


A heavy mail coach, on which De Quincey is riding, rushes down 
a narrow lane upon a slight vehicle in which sit two sweethearts. 
De Quincey portrays the lady when death thus suddenly confronts 
her. 

Study the celebrated last sentence. It is periodic and ends in an 
impressive climax; also it skilfully embodies the rhetorical device 
of piling up words and phrases in threes. 

But the lady-! Oh, heavens! will that spectacle ever 

depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, 
sank and rose, threw up her arms wildly to heaven, clutched at 
some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, de¬ 
spairing? Figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the case; 
suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances of that 
unparalleled situation. From the silence and deep peace of this 
saintly summer night—from the pathetic blending of this sweet 
moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight—from the manly tenderness of 
this flattering, whispering, murmuring love—suddenly as from 
the woods and fields—suddenly as from the chambers of the air 
opening in revelation—suddenly as from the ground yawning 
at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, 
Death the crowned phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, 
and the tiger roar of his voice. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Draw an emotional contrast in a paragraph on one of these topics: 

The Bleachers When Todd Made His Touchdown 

Our Picnic Party When Charged by a Bull 

When Willie Swallowed a Button 

When Jack Pointed the Gun at Me 

When the Ball Broke the Plate-Glass Window 

When Phelps Was Drawn into the Suck-Hole 

When My Brother Broke through the Ice 

The Scene When the Word Spread That the Dam Had Given 
Way 

Katy When Her Mother Forbade Her to Go to the Party 
When the Policeman Bade Me Halt. 


29 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


APOSTROPHE TO GENERAL WARREN * 
Daniel Webster 


For the sake of clearness or of the emotional effect, a carefully 
selected word or phrase may be several times repeated in a para¬ 
graph. It usually is given a salient position, as at the beginning or 
end of successive sentences. 

But ah! Him! the first great martyr in this great cause! 
Him! the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart! 
Him! the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of 
our military bands, whom nothing brought hither but the un¬ 
quenchable fire of his own spirit! Him! cut off by Providence 
in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom, falling 
ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his gen¬ 
erous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fer¬ 
tilize a land of freedom or of bondage!—how shall I struggle 
with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our 
poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This monument 
may moulder aw T ay; the solid ground it rests upon may sink 
down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! 
Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to 
the transports of patriotism and liberty, its aspirations shall be 
to claim kindred with thy spirit! 


ASSIGNMENT 


Repeat one of these words or phrases as skilfully as you can 
in a paragraph of which the effect shall be cumulative: 


Bird’s eggs 
That spring 
Dog tired 
What an idea 
That terrible child 
Genevieve 
Dark 


Sleepy 
Red Tape 

His intentions were good 
That was his way 
I was never so surprised 
Outside the schoolroom 
“The fishin’s good.” 


* From “Bunker Hill Oration.” 


30 


PARAGRAPHS 


MORNING IN THE MOUNTAINS* 

John Ruskin 

A descriptive paragraph may express at the outset a general 
mood or effect which the remaining sentences reinforce and make 
specific. 

[General impression] It was indeed a morning that might 
have made any one happy, even with no Golden River to seek 
for. [Particulars and details] Level lines of dewy mist lay 
stretched along the valley, out of which rose the massy moun¬ 
tains—their lower cliffs in pale gray shadow, hardly distin¬ 
guishable from the floating vapor, but gradually ascending till 
they caught the sunlight, which ran in sharp touches of ruddy 
color along the angular crags, and pierced, in long level rays, 
through their fringes of spear-like pine. Far above, shot up 
red splintered masses of castellated rock, jagged and shivered 
into myriads of fantastic forms, with here and there a streak 
of sunlit snow, traced down their chasms like a line of forked 
lightning; and far beyond and above all these, fainter than 
the morning cloud, but purer and changeless, slept in the blue 
sky the utmost peaks of the eternal snow. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Analyze the paragraph for its use of (a) color words, (b) 
motion words. 

2. Follow the general pattern of the paragraph in describing one 
of the following: 

A Hideous Old Man 

A Slovenly Old Woman 

The Cemetery 

Our Haymow 

Sunset Over the Lake 

The Most Beautiful Scene I Ever Looked Upon 

The Saturday Night Band Concert on Main Street 

A Downtown Crossing. 

* The King of the Golden River, Chapter III. 

3T 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

EATING GREEN PEAS* 

Mrs. Elizabeth C. Gaskell 

In narrative the bases of paragraph unity are more diverse than 
in exposition, argument, or description. Each paragraph must be 
a logical unit, but whether it shall be long or short, narrow or in¬ 
clusive, must depend upon the precise emphasis the writer wishes 
to impart. Two writers might arrange the same material into en¬ 
tirely different paragraph divisions, and yet each have perfect ar¬ 
rangement according to his plan. 

Here we have a single narrative paragraph which presents logically 
several simultaneous actions, indicates the passage of time, and in 
the concluding clause gives an excellent “cracker” to this particu¬ 
lar portion of the story. 

When the ducks and green peas came, we looked at each 
other in dismay; we had only two-pronged, black-handled 
forks. It is true, the steel was as bright as silver; but what 
were we to’do? Miss Matty picked up her peas, one by one, 
on the point of the prongs, much as Amine ate her grains of 
rice after her previous feast with the Ghoul. Miss Pole sighed 
over her delicate young peas as she left them on one side of 
her plate untasted; for they would drop between the prongs. 
I looked at my host; the peas were going wholesale into his 
capacious mouth, shovelled up by his large rounded knife. I 
saw, I imitated, I survived! My friends, in spite of my 
precedent, could not muster up courage enough to do an un- 
genteel thing; and, if Mr. Holbrook had not been so heartily 
hungry, he would probably have seen that the good peas went 
away almost untouched. 


ASSIGNMENT 

I. Rearrange the material of this selection into two or more 
paragraphs in order to change the emphasis. Omit or modify sen¬ 
tences if your purpose requires. 

* Cranford, Chapter IV. 

32 


PARAGRAPHS 


2. Analyze one of the selections on pages 118-143 with reference 
to its division into paragraph units. Can the division be in any 
wise altered without changing the emphasis? 

3. Write a narrative paragraph on one of these topics: 

How Wilkins Ate the Soup 
How I Tore My New Dress 
Forbes and the Finger Bowl 
Dawkins at the Dance 

The First Time Mother Let Me Make a Cake 

The Funniest Thing I Ever Saw at Table 

How I Worked My Way into the Circus 

The Mishaps of a Milkmaid 

Riding the Roan 

My First Cigarette 

When I Tried to Walk the Rope. 

JOHNSON’S FIRST MEETING WITH HOGARTH* 

James Boswell 

This paragraph illustrates the narration of a simple incident. 

Johnson used to be a pretty frequent visitor at the house of 
Mr. Richardson, author of Clarissa, and other novels of ex¬ 
tensive reputation. Mr. Hogarth came one day to see Rich¬ 
ardson, soon after the execution of Dr. Cameron, for having 
taken arms for the house of Stuart in 1745-6; and being a warm 
partisan of George the Second, he observed to Richardson, that 
certainly there must have been some very unfavorable circum¬ 
stances lately discovered in this particular case, which had 
induced the King to approve of an execution for rebellion so 
long after the time when it was committed, as this had the 
appearance of putting a man to death in cold blood, and was 
very unlike his Majesty’s usual clemency. While he was talk¬ 
ing, he perceived a person standing at a window in the room, 
shaking his head, and rolling himself about in a strange 

* From Life of Johnson. 


33 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


ridiculous manner. He concluded that he was an idiot, whom 
his relations had put under the care of Mr. Richardson, as a 
very good man. To his great surprise, however, this figure 
stalked forwards to where he and Mr. Richardson were sitting, 
and all at once took up the argument, and burst out into an 
invective against George the Second, as one, who, upon all 
occasions, was unrelenting and barbarous; mentioning many 
instances, particularly, that when an officer of high rank had 
been acquitted by a Court Martial, George the Second had 
with his own hand struck his name off the list. In short, he 
displayed such a power of eloquence, that Hogarth looked at 
him with astonishment, and actually imagined that this idiot 
had been at the moment inspired. Neither Hogarth nor John¬ 
son were made known to each other at this interview. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a narrative paragraph on one of these topics: 

A Grotesque Encounter 
A Misapprehension 

My First Meeting with My Best Friend 
When I First Walked Home with a Girl 
When Elmira’s First Beau Called 
A Foolish (Dangerous) Prank 

The Dinner We Had When the Minister Dropped In 
An Amusing Incident on a Train 
A Minnow in the Milk Bottle 
Once Too Often. 

INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ON 
BYRON AND SHELLEY* 

Edward Dowden 

Most of the preceding paragraphs could be considered apart from 
their context. But paragraphs may be affected by the fact that 

* From “Last Words on Shelley” in Transcripts and Studies. Reprinted by 
permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. 


34 


PARAGRAPHS 

they are members of larger units. The fact that the following 
paragraph is not isolated has largely determined its structure. It 
is an excerpt from a study of Shelley. Thus Shelley is thrust into 
the forefront, though the real theme is a comparison of Byron and 
Shelley as revolutionists—a comparison in which Shelley follows 
Byron as a climax, rather than precedes him. The last sentence 
clarifies and beautifies the comparison through a striking figure of 
speech. 

In the earlier years of our century * the democratic movement 
concerned itself too exclusively with the individual and his 
rights, and regarded too little his duties, affections, and priv¬ 
ileges as a member of society. It is greatly to the advantage 
of Shelley’s work as a poet, and greatly to his credit as a man, 
that he assigns to love, that which links us to our fellows, some 
of the power and authority which Godwin ascribes to reason 
alone. The French Revolution had been in a great measure a 
destruction of the ancient order of society, and such poetry as 
that of Byron, sympathizing with the revolution, is too reckless 
an assertion of individual freedom. Shelley was deeply in¬ 
fected with the same errors. But it is part of the glory of his 
poetry that in some degree he anticipated the sentiment of 
this second half of our century, when we desire more to con¬ 
struct or reconstruct than to destroy. Shelley’s ideas of a 
reconstruction of society are indeed often vague or visionary; 
but there is always present in his poetry the sentiment or feeling 
which tends to reconstruction, the feeling of love; and the word 
“fraternity” is for him at least as potent as the word “liberty.” 
In Byron we find an expression of the revolution on its negative 
side; in Shelley we find this, but also an expression of the 
revolution on its positive side. As the wave of revolution rolls 
onward, driven forth from the vast volcanic upheaval in France, 
and as it becomes a portion of the literary movement of Great 
Britain, its dark and hissing crest may be the poetry of Byron; 

* The nineteenth. 

35 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


but over the tumultuous wave hangs an iris of beauty and 
promise, and that foam-bow of hope, flashing and failing, and 
ever reappearing as the wave sweeps on, is the poetry of Shelley. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a paragraph, if possible closing it figuratively, on one of 
these topics. Assume that the paragraph belongs to a fuller dis¬ 
cussion of one of the two members compared. 

Roosevelt and Wilson as World Figures 

Corner Lot Baseball and Professional Baseball 

The Influence of the Gang and the Influence of Sunday School 
upon Me 

Outdoor Sports for Girls 

Have We Too Much Mere Memory Work in School? 

The Sealed Window Man and the Fresh Air Fiend 

Doctors Who Prescribe and Doctors Who Operate 

College Activities and Scholarship. 

THE SUPREMACY OF CHARACTER OVER BRAINS 

AND BRAWN* 

Theodore Roosevelt 

The right sequence and welding of the paragraph units are vital 
to longer compositions. The sequence and the manner of welding 
may of course vary with the material and the purpose. The two 
following paragraphs deal with one topic. The first introduces, 
the second develops it. 

A year or two ago I was speaking to a famous Yale profes¬ 
sor, one of the most noted scholars in the country, and one who 
is even more than a scholar, because he is in every sense of 
the word a man. We had been discussing the Yale-Harvard 
foot-ball teams, and he remarked of a certain player: “I told 
them not to take him, for he was slack in his studies, and my 
experience is that, as a rule, the man who is slack in his studies 

* From “Character and Success” in The Strenuous Life. Reprinted by 
permission of the Century Co. 

36 


PARAGRAPHS 

will be slack in his foot-ball work; it is character that counts 
in both.” 

Bodily vigor is good, and vigor of intellect is even better, 
but far above both is character. It is true, of course, that a 
genius may, on certain lines, do more than a brave and manly 
fellow who is not a genius; and so, in sports, vast physical 
strength may overcome weakness, even though the puny body 
may have in it the heart of a lion. But, in the long run, in 
the great battle of life, no brilliancy of intellect, no perfection 
of bodily development, will count when weighed in the balance 
against that assemblage of virtues, active and passive, of moral 
qualities, which we group together under the name of character; 
and if between any two contestants, even in college sport or in 
college work, the difference in character on the right side is as 
great as the difference of intellect or strength the other way, it 
is the character side that will win. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Through an anecdote or otherwise introduce in one paragraph 
one of these topics. Develop the topic in a second paragraph. 

My Pleasure (as a speaker) in Coming to Your City 
The Rapidity with Which Our Western States Have Been Settled 
A. Quality I Have Observed in Country (City) Folk 
Our Indifference to the Welfare of Immigrants 
One’s Loneliness and Bewilderment When He Enters a New 
School 

How the Habit of Borrowing Grows upon One 

The News That Never Gets Published 

The Big Sister Plan 

The True Yellow Peril (dandelions). 

BROWBEATING THE ORIENTALS* 

A. W. Kinglake 

This selection illustrates three things, the first two of which 
have been illustrated already: (i) a sequence of paragraphs on 
* Eothen, Chapter XXIV. 


37 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


the same general topic, (2) a merging of narrative and exposition, 
(3) the fact that even an expository paragraph may be affected as 
to its dimensions by the purpose and the desired emphasis. The 
first paragraph of this selection need not include all the matter it 
does; some of the matter could be placed in an additional paragraph. 

Passing now once again through Palestine and Syria, I re¬ 
tained the tent which I had used in the desert, and found that 
it added very much to my comfort in traveling. Instead of 
turning out a family from some wretched dwelling, and de¬ 
priving them of rest without gaining rest for myself, I now, 
when evening came, pitched my tent upon some smiling spot 
within a few hundred yards of the village to which I looked 
for my supplies—that is, for milk, for bread (if I had it not 
with me), and sometimes also for eggs. The worst of it was 
that the needful viands were not to be obtained by coin, but 
only by intimidation. I at first tried the usual agent—money. 
Dthemetri, with one or two of my Arabs, went into the village 
near which I was encamped, and tried to buy the required 
provisions, offering liberal payment, but he came back empty- 
handed. I sent him again, but this time he held different 
language: he required to see the elders of the place, and, 
threatening dreadful vengeance, commanded them upon their 
responsibility to take care that my tent should be immediately 
and abundantly supplied. He was obeyed at once; and the 
provisions refused to me as a purchaser soon arrived, trebled or 
quadrupled, when demanded by way of a forced contribution. 
I quickly found (I think it required two experiments to con¬ 
vince me) that this peremptory method was the only one which 
could be adopted with success; it never failed. Of course, how¬ 
ever, when the provisions have been actually obtained, you can, 
if you choose, give money exceeding the value of the provisions 
to somebody; an English—a thoroughbred English traveler will 
always do this (though it is contrary to the custom of the 
country) for the quiet (false quiet though it be) of his 

38 


own 


PARAGRAPHS 


conscience: but so to order the matter that the poor fellows who 
have been forced to contribute should be the persons to receive 
the value of their supplies is not possible; for a traveler to 
attempt anything so grossly just as that would be too out¬ 
rageous. The truth is that the usage of the East in old times 
required the people of the village at their own cost to supply 
the wants of travelers; and the ancient custom is now adhered 
to—not in favor of travelers generally, but in favor of those 
who are deemed sufficiently powerful to enforce its observance. 
If the villagers, therefore, find a man waiving this right to 
oppress them, and offering coin for that which he is entitled to 
take without payment, they suppose at once that he is actuated 
by fear (fear of them, poor fellows!) and it is so delightful to 
them to act upon this flattering assumption that they will forego 
the advantage of a good price for their provisions rather than 
the rare luxury of refusing for once in their lives to part with 
their own possessions. 

The practice of intimidation thus rendered necessary is utterly 
hateful to an Englishman. He finds himself forced to conquer 
his daily bread by the pompous threats of the Dragoman—his 
very subsistence, as well as his dignity and personal safety, 
being made to depend upon his servant’s assuming a tone of 
authority which does not at all belong to him. Besides, he can 
scarcely fail to see that, as he passes through the country, he 
becomes the innocent cause of much extra injustice—many 
supernumerary wrongs. This he feels to be especially the case 
when he travels with relays. To be the owner of a horse or a 
mule within reach of an Asiatic potentate is to lead the life of 
the hare and the rabbit—hunted down and ferreted out. Too 
often it happens that the works of the world are stopped in the 
daytime, that the inmates of the cottage are roused from their 
midnight sleep, by the sudden coming of a Government officer; 
and the poor husbandman, driven by threats and rewarded by 
curses, if he would not lose sight forever of his captured beasts 

39 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


must quit all and follow them. This is done that the English¬ 
man may travel. He would make his way more harmlessly if 
he could; but horses or mules he must have, and these are his 
ways and means. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. So rewrite the first paragraph of the selection that it shall 
be divided into at least twc paragraphs. Alter the wording in any 
way the new division may require. 

2. Find the topic sentence of the first paragraph as it stands. 
Find or invent topic sentences for the new paragraphs into which 
you have divided it. 

3. Write a theme in one paragraph on one of the following 
topics. Then write a theme in two or more paragraphs on the same 
topic, and observe the change in emphasis. 

A Conclusion I Have Come to as to the Way to Deal with People 

Things I Have Learned Not to Do 

Troubles I Have Had in Keeping Class Accounts 

How I Humanized Myself in Regard to - (some mental atti¬ 

tude of mine, some piece of human conduct). 


PART II—PARAGRAPHS FOR STUDENTS TO 

ANALYZE 

You have now reached the stage at which you should be able 
to analyze or construct paragraphs without outside help or 
guidance. Study, therefore, each of the following paragraphs 
with reference to such matters as these: 

1 Does the paragraph embody any of the methods or employ 
any of the devices hitherto encountered? If so, which? Is the 
use of such methods or devices different in any way from the 
use hitherto? If so, how? Does the paragraph employ methods 
or devices other than those previously encountered? If so, what? 
Do the methods or devices suit the material? If not, why not? 

40 



PARAGRAPHS 


2. Can the paragraph be divided into two or more para¬ 
graphs? Should it be so divided? How would the emphasis 
and general effect be changed by the division ? 

3. Has the paragraph a topic sentence? If not, supply one 
or prove that no satisfactory one can be supplied. 

4. Write a list of topics that you could develop in a para¬ 
graph similar to this. So develop the topic that appeals to you 
most. 

THE CROSS-ROADS TAVERN AND THE CORNER 

GROCERY * 

Carl Van Doren 

$ 

In the annals of America there is a chapter to be written on 
the influence of the cross-roads tavern and the corner grocery. 
There the neighborhood wits and wise men have regularly 
come together, scanning the national horizon and bringing 
topics home for local commentary. They have measured the 
most complex events by simple rules; they have wondered and 
cursed and laughed that such fuss should be made over far-away 
affairs; they have yarned and gossiped; they have turned uni¬ 
versal wisdom into the dry vernacular; they have helped popu¬ 
lar opinions to be born. Now and then one of these wits and 
wise men is something of a poet or a saint, touching the conver¬ 
sation with a little radiance; but most of them walk close to the 
smooth path of common sense. They know only those things 
which they have heard many times. They feel confident about 
only those things which have been tried, and tried many times. 
Even when they venture into longer speculations, they venture 
cautiously. Religion in their talk becomes ethics, government 
becomes politics, economics becomes business, love becomes 

* From “Prudence Militant” in Century Magazine, May 1923. Reprinted 
by permission. 


41 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


obscenity or matrimony, manners becomes conventions; all the 
virtues come down to prudence. The heretic among them either 
shrinks from the stout front which they present or else elaborates 
his rebellion into a custom which they endure only if he ha'' 
been prudent in his own life. Partly with incredulity and 
partly with contempt they greet reports of idealism unless it 
is idealism standardized and recognized. Everywhere they are 
the same. As the tavern disappears before prohibition and the 
corner grocery before the mail-order catalogue, the wits and 
wise men find new lounging-places, in clubs, in the smoking- 
rooms of railway trains, in all the minor caucuses of ordinary 
life. But the channel of folk-disquisition, though thus widened, 
has not been greatly shifted. 

LAKE-BEARING RIVERS OF THE SIERRA* 

John Mu r 

The Merced River, as a whole, is remarkably like an elm-tree, 
and it requires but little effort on the part of the imagination 
to picture it standing upright, with all its lakes hanging upon 
its spreading branches, the topmost eighty miles in height. 
Now add all the other lake-bearing rivers of the Sierra, each in 
its place, and you will have a truly glorious spectacle,—an 
avenue the length and width of the range; the long, slender, 
gray shafts of the main trunks, the milky way of arching 
branches, and the silvery lakes, all clearly defined and shining 
on the sky. How excitedly such an addition to the scenery 
would be gazed at! Yet these lakeful rivers are still more 
excitingly beautiful and impressive in their natural positions 
to those who have the eyes to see them as they lie imbedded 
in their meadows and forests and glacier-sculptured rocks. 

* The Mountains of California, Chapter VI. Reprinted by permission of the 
Century Co. 


42 


PARAGRAPHS 


THE PRIEST OF PINES * 

John Muir 

No lover of trees will ever forget his first meeting with the 
Sugar Pine, nor will he afterward need a poet to call him to 
“listen what the pine-tree saith.” In most pine-trees there is 
a sameness of expression, which, to most people, is apt to become 
monotonous; for the typical spiry form, however beautiful, 
affords but little scope for appreciable individual character. 
The Sugar Pine is as free from conventionalities of form and 
motion as any oak. No two are alike, even to the most inat¬ 
tentive observer; and, notwithstanding they are ever tossing out 
their immense arms in what might seem most extravagant 
gestures, there is a majesty and repose about them that pre¬ 
cludes all possibility of the grotesque, or even picturesque, in 
their general expression. They are the priests of pines, and 
seem ever to be addressing the surrounding forest. The Yellow 
Pine is found growing with them on warm hillsides, and the 
White Silver Fir on cool northern slopes; but, noble as these 
are, the Sugar Pine is easily king, and spreads his arms above 
them in blessing while they rock and wave in sign of recognition. 
The main branches are sometimes found to be forty feet in 
length, yet persistently simple, seldom dividing at all, excepting 
near the end; but anything like a bare cable appearance is 
prevented by the small, tasseled branchlets that extend all 
around them; and when these superb limbs sweep out sym¬ 
metrically on all sides, a crown sixty or seventy feet wide is 
formed, which, gracefully poised on the summit of the noble 
shaft, and filled with sunshine, is one of the most glorious 
forest objects conceivable. Commonly, however, there is a 
great preponderance of limbs toward the east, away from the 
direction of the prevailing winds. 

* The Mountains of California, Chapter VIII. Reprinted by permission of 
the Century Co. 


43 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


THE SELECTION OF BELIEFS* 

Charles W. Eliot 

I shall venture to call your attention to the importance—with 
a view to a happy life—of making a judicious selection of 
beliefs. Here we are living on a little islet of sense and fact 
in the midst of a boundless ocean of the unknown and myste¬ 
rious. From year to year and century to century the islet ex¬ 
pands as new districts are successively lifted from out the 
encompassing sea of ignorance, but it still remains encircled 
by this prodigious sea. In this state of things, every inquisitive 
truth-seeking human being is solicited by innumerable beliefs, 
old and new. The past generations, out of which we spring, 
have been believing many undemonstrated and undemonstrable 
things, and we inherit their beliefs. Every year new beliefs 
appeal to us for acceptance, some of them clashing with the 
old. Everybody holds numerous beliefs on subjects outside the 
realm of knowledge, and, moreover, everybody has to act on 
these beliefs from hour to hour. All men of science walk by 
faith and not by sight in exploring and experimenting, the 
peculiarity of their walk being that they generally take but one 
step at a time, and that a short one. All business proceeds on 
beliefs, or judgments of probabilities, and not on certainties. 
The very essence of heroism is that it takes adverse chances; 
so that full foreknowledge of the issue would subtract from 
the heroic quality. Beliefs, then, we must have and must act 
on, and they are sure to affect profoundly our happiness in this 
world. How to treat our old beliefs and choose our new ones, 
with a view to happiness, is in these days a serious problem for 
every reflective person. 

* From “The Happy Life” in American Contributions to Civilisation. Re¬ 
printed by permission of the Century Co. 


44 


PARAGRAPHS 


THE POET’S CORNER IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY* 

Bayard Taylor 

We approached by the general entrance, Poet’s Corner. I 
hardly stopped to look at the elaborate exterior of Henry VII.’s 
Chapel, but passed on to the door. On entering, the first thing 
that met my eyes were the words, “Oh rare Ben Jonson,” 
under his bust. Near by stood the monuments of Spenser and 
Gay, and a few paces further looked down the sublime counte¬ 
nance of Milton. Never was a spot so full of intense interest. 
The light was just dim enough to give it a solemn, religious 
air, making the marble forms of poets and philosophers so 
shadowy and impressive, that I felt as if standing in their 
living presence. Every step called up some mind linked with 
the associations of my childhood. There was the gentle 
feminine countenance of Thomson, and the majestic head of 
Dryden; Addison with his classic features, and Gray, full of 
the fire of lofty thought. In another chamber, I paused long 
before the tablet to Shakspeare; and while looking at the monu¬ 
ment of Garrick, started to find that I stood upon his grave. 
What a glorious galaxy of genius is here collected—what a 
constellation of stars whose light is immortal! The mind is 
fettered by their spirit, everything is forgotten but the mighty 
dead, who still “rule us from their urns.” 

A FOOTBALL GAME AT RUGBY f 
Thomas Hughes 

“Are you ready?” “Yes.” And away comes the ball kicked 
high in the air, to give the School time to rush on and catch 
it as it falls. And here they are amongst us. Meet them like 

* Views Afoot, Chapter VII. Reprinted by permission of G. P. Putnam’s 
Sons. 

t Tom Brown’s School Days, Chapter V. 

45 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Englishmen, you School-house boys, and charge them home. 
Now is the time to show what mettle is in you—and there shall 
be a warm seat by the hall fire, and honor, and lots of bottled 
beer to-night, for him who does his duty in the next half-hour. 
And they are well met. Again and again the cloud of their 
players-up gathers before our goal and comes threatening on, 
and Warner or Hedge, with young Brooke and the relics of the 
bull-dogs, break through and carry the ball back; and old 
Brooke ranges the field like Job’s war-horse, the thickest scrum¬ 
mage parts asunder before his rush, like the waves before a 
clipper’s bows; his cheery voice rings over the field, and his 
eye is everywhere. And if these miss the ball, and it rolls 
dangerously in front of our goal, Crab Jones and his men have 
seized it and sent it away towards the sides with the unerring 
drop-kick. This is worth living for; the whole sum of schoolboy 
existence gathered up into one straining, struggling half-hour, 
a half-hour worth a year of common life. 

APRES VOUS AMONG CAMELS * 

A. W. Kinglake 

The camels with which I traversed this part of the desert 
were very different in their ways and habits from those that 
you hire on a frequented route. They were never led. There 
was not the slightest sign of a track in this part of the desert, 
but the camels never failed to choose the right line. By the 
direction taken at starting, they knew the point (some encamp¬ 
ment, I suppose) for which they were to make. There is always 
a leading camel (generally, I believe, the eldest), who marches 
foremost and determines the path for the whole party. When 
it happens that no one of the camels has been accustomed to 
lead the others, there is very great difficulty in making a start; 
if you force your beast forward for a moment, he will contrive 

* Eotlien, Chapter XXIII. 


46 


PARAGRAPHS 


to wheel and draw back, at the same time looking at one of the 
other camels with an expression and gesture exactly equivalent 
to apres vous. The responsibility of finding the way is evidently 
assumed very unwillingly. After some time, however, it be¬ 
comes understood that one of the beasts has reluctantly con¬ 
sented to take the lead, and he accordingly advances for that 
purpose. For a minute or two he marches with great indecision, 
taking first one line and then another, but soon, by the aid of 
some mysterious sense, he discovers the true direction, and 
thenceforward keeps to it steadily, going on from morning to 
night. When once the leadership is established, you cannot by 
any persuasion, and scarcely even by blows, induce a junior 
camel to walk one single step in advance of the chosen guide. 

HENRY JAMES’S WAY WITH CHILDREN * 

Walter Tittle 

“James always said that an artist should never marry. I 
cannot agree with him. It is true that the responsibilities of 
matrimony are likely to be a serious handicap to creative work 
unless the artist is fortunate in his choice of a wife. If she is 
able to shield him from the details that would destroy his work¬ 
ing time, he should be stronger with her love and sympathy 
than without it. The temperament of the person has much 
bearing on the case, too. James was doubtless better off as a 
bachelor. Yet he had a way with children, apparently. My 
youngest boy as a child hated to be touched by strangers. He 
had a mind of his own, and usually managed to have his way. 
I forbade his coming into my study when I was at work, which 
seemed to make being there the thing he most desired. He 
would come into the room in spite of my protests, step by step, 
with the most irresistible smile on his face, knowing that in 

* From “Portraits :n Pen and Pencil," Century Magazine, May 1923. Re¬ 
printed by permission. 


47 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


two minutes at most he could conquer me. Then his prattle 
would make work impossible. James was with me on one 
of these occasions, talking in his solemn, portentous way. The 
child stood looking at him, fascinated, and apparently listening 
attentively to everything that he said. James, with hardly a 
look at him, reached out slowly in an absent-minded way, took 
the boy by the arm, and deliberately drew him to his lap, 
talking solemnly all the while. Contrary to all precedent, there 
was no resistance. The little one sat without a sound or move¬ 
ment in spite of a cramped position, staring wonderingly into 
my friend’s face, while James forgot the existence of the 
child, who did not stir until our conversation was ended, and 
we rose to leave the room.” 

LIVING IN THE PAST * 

Charles Lamb 

I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties; new books, 
new faces, new years,—from some mental twist which makes 
it difficult in me to face the prospective. I have almost ceased 
to hope; and am sanguine only in the prospect of other (former) 
years. I plunge into foregone visions and conclusions. I 
encounter pell-mell with past disappointments. I am armor- 
proof against old discouragements. I forgive, or overcome in 
fancy, old adversaries. I play over again for love, as the 
gamesters phrase it, games, for which I once paid so dear. I 
would scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and 
events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them than 
the incidents of some well-contrived novel. Methinks, it is 
better that I should have pined away seven of my goldenest 
years, when I was thrall to the fair hair, and fairer eyes, of 

Alice W-n, than that so passionate a love-adventure should 

be lost. It was better that our family should have missed that 

* From “New Year’s Eve” in Essays of Elia. 

48 



PARAGRAPHS 


legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us of, than that I should have 
at this moment two thousand pounds in banco, and be without 
the idea of that specious old rogue. 

AT OXFORD IN VACATION * 

Charles Lamb 

I can here play the gentleman, enact the student. To such a 
one as myself, who has been defrauded in his young years of 
the sweet food of academic institution, nowhere is so pleasant, 
to while away a few idle weeks at, as one or other of the 
Universities. Their vacation, too, at this time of the year, 
falls in so pat with ours. Here I can take my walks unmolested, 
and fancy myself of what degree or standing I please. I seem 
admitted ad eundem. I fetch up past opportunities. I can rise 
at the chapel-bell, and dream that it rings for me. In moods 
of humility I can be a Sizar, or a Servitor. When the peacock 
vein rises, I strut a Gentleman Commoner. In graver moments, 
I proceed Master of Arts. Indeed I do not think I am much 
unlike that respectable character. I have seen your dim-eyed 
vergers, and bed-makers in spectacles, drop a bow or curtsey, 
as I pass, wisely mistaking me for something of the sort. I go 
about in black, which favors the notion. Only in Christ Church 
reverend quadrangle, I can be content to pass for nothing short 
of a Seraphic Doctor. 

BACKGROUNDS OF SONG FOR BURNS AND FROST f 

Carl Van Doren 

To compare Robert Frost, as he has often been compared, 
with Robert Burns, is to call attention at the outset to a differ- 

A 

* From “Oxford in Vacation” in Essays of Elia. 

t From “The Soil of the Puritans,” Century Magazine, February 1923. 
Reprinted by permission. 


49 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

ence between the Yankees and the Scots which has had a great 
effect upon the difference between these two poets. Burns grew 
up among a peasantry which sang. Not only were there ballads 
of the traditionary sort in every chimney-corner, but there were 
also gay tunes in the air ready for the new words of any new 
versifier. Even a genius like Burns in even his most character¬ 
istic lyrics was likely to owe some of his lines and the mold in 
which he cast them to old songs of love or laughter or defiance; 
and he was sure in such cases to owe to the fame of the older 
songs some part of the prosperity of his own. The ears of his 
hearers were already prepared for him. In rural New England 
Robert Frost had no similar advantages. Almost the only tunes 
which had ever been lifted there had been the dry hymns of 
the churches. Ballad-making had died out; hilarious catches 
had rarely been trolled in cheerful taverns; youth did not sing 
its love, but talked when it did not merely hint. New England 
since the Revolution has had but one great popular orator; 
since “Yankee Doodle” only one popular patriotic song has 
come out of New England. The voice of that region is the 
voice of reason, of the intellect, of prose, canny or noble; it 
walks, not flies. There was nothing to teach or to encourage 
Mr. Frost to ride on the wings of established melodies. 

GREATNESS AND CONSISTENCY * 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored 
by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With con¬ 
sistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well 
concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you 
think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow 
thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you 

* From “Self-Reliance.” 

50 


PARAGRAPHS 


said to-day.—“Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.”— 
Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was mis¬ 
understood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Coper¬ 
nicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit 
that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. 

THE GREAT MAN AND HIS TIME* 

Thomas Carlyle 

I am well aware that in these days Hero-worship, the thing 
I call Hero-worship, professes to have gone out, and finally 
ceased. This, for reasons which it will be worth while some 
time to inquire into, is an age that as it were denies the existence 
of great men; denies the desirableness of great men. Show our 
critics a great man, a Luther for example, they begin to what 
they call “account” for him; not to worship him, but to take 
the dimensions of him,—and bring him out to be a little kind 
of man! He was the “creature of the Time,” they say; the 
Time called him forth, the Time did everything, he nothing— 
but what we the little critic could have done too! This seems 
to me but melancholv work. The Time call forth? Alas, we 
have known Times call loudly enough for their great man; but 
not find him when they called! He was not there; Providence 
had not sent him; the Time, calling its loudest, had to go down 
to confusion and wreck because he would not come when 
called. . . . 

BURNS A CONSIDERABLE MAN f 
Thomas Carlyle 

Burns first came upon the world as a prodigy; and was, in 
that character, entertained by it, in the usual fashion, with 

* From. “The Hero as Divinity.” 
t From “Essay on Burns.” 


51 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


loud, vague, tumultuous wonder, speedily subsiding into censure 
and neglect; till his early and most mournful death again 
awakened an enthusiasm for him, which, especially as there 
was now nothing to be done, and much to be spoken, has pro¬ 
longed itself even to our own time. It is true, the “nine days” 
have long since elapsed; and the very continuance of this 
clamor proves that Burns was no vulgar wonder. Accordingly, 
even in sober judgments, where, as years passed by, he has come 
to rest more and more exclusively on his own intrinsic merits, 
and may now be well-nigh shorn of that casual radiance, he 
appears not only as a true British poet, but as one of the most 
considerable British men of the eighteenth century. Let it not 
be objected that he did little. He did much, if we consider 
where and how. If the work performed was small, we must 
remember that he had his very materials to discover; for the 
metal he worked in lay hid under the desert, where no eye but 
his had guessed its existence; and we may almost say, that 
with his own hand he had to construct the tools for fashioning 
it. For he found himself in deepest obscurity, without help, 
without instruction, without model; or with models only of the 
meanest sort. An educated man stands, as it were, in the midst 
of a boundless arsenal and magazine, filled with all the weapons 
and engines which man’s skill has been able to devise from the 
earliest time; and he works, accordingly, with a strength bor¬ 
rowed from all past ages. How different is his state who stands 
on the outside of that storehouse, and feels that its gates must 
be stormed, or remain for ever shut against him! His means 
are the commonest and rudest; the mere work done is no meas¬ 
ure of his strength. A dwarf behind his steam engine may 
remove mountains; but no dwarf will hew them down with the 
pick-axe; and he must be a Titan that hurls them abroad with 
his arms. 


52 


PARAGRAPHS 


LITERATURE AS A CALLING IN THE AGE 

OF JOHNSON* 

Lord Macaulay 

Never, since literature became a calling in England, had it 
been a less gainful calling than at the time when Johnson took 
up his residence in London. In the preceding generation a 
writer of eminent merit was sure to be munificently rewarded 
by the government. The least that he .could expect was a pension 
or a sinecure place; and, if he showed any aptitude for politics, 
he might hope to be a member of parliament, a lord of the 
treasury, an ambassador, a secretary of state. It would be 
easy, on the other hand, to name several writers of the nineteenth 
century of whom the least successful has received forty thousand 
pounds from the booksellers. But Johnson entered on his voca¬ 
tion in the most dreary part of the dreary interval which sepa¬ 
rated two ages of prosperity. Literature had ceased to flourish 
under the patronage of the great, and had not begun to flourish 
under the patronage of the public. One man of letters, indeed, 
Pope, had acquired by his pen what was then considered as 
a handsome fortune, and lived on a footing of equality with 
nobles and ministers of state. But this was a solitary exception. 
Even an author whose reputation was established, and whose 
works were popular, such an author as Thomson, whose Sea¬ 
sons were in every library, such an author as Fielding, whose 
Pasquin had had a greater run than any drama since The 
Beggar’s Opera, was sometimes glad to obtain, by pawning his 
best coat, the means of dining on tripe at a cook-shop under¬ 
ground, where he could wipe his hands, after his greasy meal, 
on the back of a Newfoundland dog. It is easy, therefore, to 
imagine what humiliation and privations must have awaited 
the novice who had still to earn a name. One of the publishers 

* From “Essay on Johnson.” 

53 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


to whom Johnson applied for employment measured with a 
scornful eye that athletic though uncouth frame, and exclaimed, 
“You had better get a porter’s knot, and carry trunks.” Nor 
was the advice bad; for a porter was likely to be as plentifully 
fed, and as comfortably lodged, as a poet. 

ORIGIN OF THE DIVISION OF LABOR * 

Adam Smith 

As it is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase, that we obtain 
from one another the greater part of those mutual good offices 
which we stand in need of, so it is this same trucking disposi¬ 
tion which originally gives occasion to the division of labor. 
In a tribe of hunters or shepherds a particular person makes 
bows and arrows, for example, with more readiness and dex¬ 
terity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle 
or for venison with his companions; and he finds at last that 
he can in this manner get more cattle and venison, than if he 
himself went to the fields to catch them. From a regard to his 
own interest, therefore, the making of bows and arrows grows 
to be his chief business, and he becomes a sort of armorer. 
Another excels in making the frames and covers of their little 
huts or moveable houses. He is accustomed to be of use in this 
way to his neighbors, who reward him in the same manner with 
cattle and with venison, till at last he finds it his interest to 
dedicate himself entirely to this employment, and to become 
a sort of house-carpenter. In the same manner a third becomes 
a smith or a brazier; a fourth a tanner or dresser of hides or 
skins, the principal part of the clothing of savages. And thus 
the certainty of being able to exchange all that surplus part of 
the produce of his own labor, which is over and above his own 
consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men’s 

* The Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter II. 

54 


PARAGRAPHS 


labor as he may have occasion for, encourages every man to 
apply himself to a particular occupation, and to cultivate and 
bring to perfection whatever talent or genius he may possess for 
that particular species of business. 

FOLK TO WHOM IDLENESS IS COMA * 

Robert Louis Stevenson 

Extreme busyness, whether at school or college, kirk or market, 
is a symptom of deficient vitality; and a faculty for idleness 
implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal 
identity. There is a sort of dead-alive, hackneyed people about, 
who are scarcely conscious of living except in the exercise 
of some conventional occupation. Bring these fellows into the 
country, or set them aboard ship, and you will see how they 
pine for their desk or their study. They have no curiosity; they 
cannot give themselves over to random provocations; they do 
not take pleasure in the exercise of their faculties for its own 
sake; and unless Necessity lays about them with a stick, they 
will even stand still. It is no good speaking to such.folk; they 
cannot be idle, their nature is not generous enough; and they 
pass those hours in a sort of coma, which are not dedicated to 
furious moiling in the gold-mill. When they do not require 
to go>to the office, when they are not hungry and have no mind 
to drink, the whole breathing world is a blank to them. If they 
have to wait an hour or so for a train, they fall into a stupid 
trance with their eyes open. To see them, you would suppose 
there was nothing to look at and no one to speak with; you 
would imagine they were paralyzed or alienated; and yet very 
possibly they are hard workers in their own way, and have 
good eyesight for a flaw in a deed or a turn of the market. 
They have been to school and college, but all the time they 

* From “An Apology for Idlers.” Reprinted by permission of Charles 
Scribner’s Sons. 


55 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


had their eye on the medal; they have gone about in the world 
and mixed with clever people, but all the time they were think¬ 
ing of their own affairs. As if a man’s soul were not too small to 
begin with, they have dwarfed and narrowed theirs by a life of 
all work and no play; until here they are at forty, with a list¬ 
less attention, a mind vacant of all material of amusement, and 
not one thought to rub against another, while they wait for 
the train. Before he was breeched, he might have clambered 
on the boxes; when he was twenty, he would have stared at 
the girls; but now the pipe is smoked out, the snuff-box empty, 
and my gentleman sits bolt upright upon a bench, with lament¬ 
able eyes. This does not appeal to me as being Success in Life. 

THE SCHOOLROOM * 

Charles Dickens 

I gazed upon the school-room into which he took me, as the 
most forlorn and desolate place I had ever seen. I see it now. 
A long room, with three long rows of desks, and six of forms, 
and bristling all round with pegs for hats and slates. Scraps 
of old copy-books and exercises litter the dirty floor. Some 
silkworms’ houses, made of the same materials, are scattered 
over the desks. Two miserable little white mice, left behind 
by their owner, are running up and down in a fusty castle made 
of pasteboard and wire, looking in all the corners with their 
red eyes for anything to eat. A bird, in a cage very little bigger 
than himself, makes a mournful rattle now and then in hopping 
on his perch, two inches high, or dropping from it; but neither 
sings nor chirps. There is a strange unwholesome smell upon 
the room, like mildewed corduroys, sweet apples wanting air, 
and rotten books. There could not well be more ink splashed 
about it, if it had been roofless from its first construction, and 

* David Copperfield, Chapter V. 

56 


PARAGRAPHS 


the skies had rained, snowed, hailed, and blown ink through 
the varying seasons of the year. 

THE INCOMPETENCY OF AMERICAN BUSINESS 

MEN * 

Nathaniel Peffer 

Dr. Reinsch’s most important contribution, however, is his 
revelation, backed by official facts, of the incompetency of 
American business men. Here was a university professor and 
writer, one of these impractical men, trying to egg sound, 
broad-gauged financiers and captains of industry to invest their 
money so as to get a footing in the world’s best market. He 
not only tried to persuade them but thought up their “pros¬ 
pects” for them, outlined their “propositions,” and promised to 
“follow up” for them. And there is irony in the professor’s 
recurrent complaint of the business man’s provincialism, timid¬ 
ity, lack of enterprise, and gaucherie. When you read concrete 
cases, such as are given by Dr. Reinsch, you realize that Brit¬ 
ain’s commercial supremacy all over the world can be attributed 
not so much to the maneuvers of its Foreign Office as to the 
superior intelligence of its business men. You realize also how 
empty is the conventional alibi of the American business man 
that he has no support from his government. Here was an 
American minister pleading with American business to let him 
support it, and American business men bungled; first bragged 
lustily and then bungled and backed out, bringing ridicule both 
on themselves and the minister. As any Chinese will say, 
Americans promise big, they never make good. 

ASSIGNMENT FOR THE SECTION AS A WHOLE 

i. Study the development of paragraphs in newspapers, maga¬ 
zines, books, your other text books. Bring to class examples of good 

* From “The Mysterious East,” The Nation, April n, 1923. Reprinted 
by permission of The Nation. 


57 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


paragraph development, of faulty paragraph development, of para¬ 
graphs that should be divided, of paragraphs that should be com¬ 
bined. 

2. Criticize (do not necessarily condemn) the structure of the 
following paragraphs: 

(a) “English Hotels” (pages 267-68) 

(b) “Choosing Our Friends” (page 308) 

(c) The second paragraph of “The Old Practitioner and the 
Young” (pages 223-24) 

(d) The first paragraph of “The ‘Dropping Song’ of the Mock¬ 
ing-Bird” (pages 231-32). 

3. Analyze and criticize the following selections with regard to 
their division into paragraphs: 

(a) “The Robin” (pages 228-31) 

(b) “The Battle between the Black and the Red Ants” (pages 
247 - 50 ) 

(c) “With What Class of Men Shall Shelley Be Numbered?” 
(pages 221-23). 


58 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


Poor writers convey neither definite ideas nor definite emo¬ 
tions. Fairly good writers—and they are less numerous than 
they should be—make their ideas clear. Writers with a sure 
artistic sense—and these are the rarest of all—can summon 
both an intelligible meaning and the right esthetic and emo¬ 
tional flavor. Besides setting down their exact thought, they 
induce a particular mood, impart to their pages a preconceived 
tone, and bend everything they say to one consistent and 
cumulative effect. 

To give writing clearness requires the use of the brain. Any 
person with judgment and patience can in time become a clear 
writer. To invest writing with delicate esthetic and emotional 
qualities requires sensibility as well as judgment and patience. 
Only the masters can achieve such a standard in its perfection 
and through sustained passages. But many a speaker or writer 
has the knack for it in some rude, intermittent form; and any 
normal person can approach it sufficiently to inform every page 
he writes with genuine pleasure for the reader. 

In every piece of his writing the student should first of all 
decide upon his objective—should decide what mood, what tone, 
what effect he will strive for. He should then do whatsoever 
he can to advance himself upon the road to this objective, and 
on no account should do anything that will carry him, even for 
a moment, into some other quarter. The admonition he should 
give himself constantly is this: Have everything in keeping. 

59 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Every idea, every feeling he introduces should make for the 
preestahlished end. The emphasis must be just right, must 
shift' in subtle response to varying conditions, must never fall 
short of the requirements yet never exceed them. Above all, the 
haphazard word, the word that bungles an effect, the word that 
will almost do, must be studiously avoided. In its place must 
go the word that conveys both the thought and the mood with 
precision. All this is difficult to achieve. But without it the 
passage is marred as sadly as is a ghost story by the premature 
turning up of lights. And with it the passage becomes as impres¬ 
sive as a ghost story is when lights are dim and soft, and the 
wind outside moans round the gables, and the voice of the 
narrator flows with an effortless freightage of sepulchral 
implications. 

MY RESCUE BY RATS * 

(Mood: loathing) 

Edgar Allan Poe 

The narrator is bound by a surcingle in the path of a pendulum, 
terminating in a blade of razor-like keenness, that slowly descends 
upon him. Unable to free himself, he smears the surcingle with 
food that has been left beside him, his resolution being to lie still 
until the rats which swarm through the place shall gnaw the sur¬ 
cingle in two. Note the concreteness of the paragraph. 

At first, the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at 
the change—at the cessation of movement. They shrank alarm- 
edly back; many sought the well. But this was only for a 
moment. I had not counted in vain upon their voracity. Observ¬ 
ing that I remained without motion, one or two of the boldest 
leaped upon the framework, and smelt at the surcingle. This 
seemed the signal for a general rush. Forth from the well they 

* From “The Pit and the Pendulum.” 

6o 



MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


hurried in fresh troops. They clung to the wood—they overran 
it, and leaped in hundreds upon my person. The measured 
movement of the pendulum disturbed them not at all. Avoiding 
its strokes, they busied themselves with the anointed bandage. 
They pressed—they swarmed upon me in ever-accumulating 
heaps. They writhed upon'my throat; their cold lips sought 
my own; I was half stifled by their thronging pressure; disgust, 
for which the world has no name, swelled my bosom, and chilled, 
with a heavy clamminess, my heart. Yet one minute, and I 
felt that the struggle would be over. Plainly I perceived the 
loosening of the bandage. I knew that in more than one place 
it must be already severed. With a more than human resolution 
I lay still. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Write out a list of the concrete words in this selection. How 
much do they contribute to the effectiveness of the mood? 

2. In a short theme on one of these topics express loathing or 
repugnance: 

Dressing a Chicken 
A Person I Detest 
People with Clammy Hands 
Something I Hate to Touch 
Toads 

An Encounter with a Snake 
My Dream of Being in a Den of Snakes 
The Thing Most Repugnant to Me. 

THE STABLE-YARD OF A COUNTRY INN ON 

A RAINY DAY * 

(Mood: dreariness) 

Washington Irving 

Note the accurate observation, precise picturing of vivid details, 
and use of connotative words in this passage. Does the touch of 

* From “The Stout Gentleman” in Bracebridge Hall. 

6l 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


animation and cheer in the last sentence give relief from the dreari¬ 
ness? enhance it? impair or augment the effectiveness of the scene? 

It was a rainy Sunday in the gloomy month of November. I 
had been detained, in the course of a journey, by a slight indis¬ 
position, from which I was recovering; but was still feverish, 
and obliged to keep within doors all day, in an inn of the small 
town of Derby. A wet Sunday in a country inn!—whoever 
has had the luck to experience one can alone judge of my 
situation. The rain pattered against the casements; the bells 
tolled for church with a melancholy sound. I went to the 
windows in quest of something to amuse the eye; but it seemed 
as if I had been placed completely out of the reach of all 
amusement. The windows of my bedroom looked out among 
tiled roofs and stacks of chimneys, while those of my sitting- 
room commanded a full view of the stable-yard. I know of 
nothing more calculated to make a man sick of this world than 
a stable-yard on a rainy day. The place was littered with wet 
straw that had been kicked about by travelers and stable-boys. 
In one corner was a stagnant pool of water, surrounding an 
island of muck; there were several half-drowned fowls crowded 
together under a cart, among which was a miserable, crest-fallen 
cock, drenched out of all life and spirit; his drooping tail mat¬ 
ted, as it were, into a single feather, along which the water 
trickled from his back; near the cart was a half-dozing cow, 
chewing the cud, and standing patiently to be rained on, with 
wreaths of vapor rising from her reeking hide; a wall-eyed 
horse, tired of the loneliness of the stable, was poking his 
spectral head out of a window, with the rain dripping on it 
from the eaves; an unhappy cur, chained to a doghouse hard 
by, uttered something every now and then, between a bark 
and a yelp; a drab of a kitchen wench tramped backwards and 
forwards through the yard in pattens, looking as sulky as the 
weather itself; every thing, in short, was comfortless and for¬ 
lorn, excepting a crew of hardened ducks, assembled like boon 

62 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


companions round a puddle, and making a riotous noise over 
their liquor. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Express dreariness in a short theme on one of these topics: 

Practising on the Piano 

Acting Like a Grown-Up 

Missing a Picnic on Account of Mumps 

The Dullest Hour I Ever Spent 

Waiting for a Train 

A Sleepless Night 

Killing Time That Well Deserved to Die 
That Insufferable Classroom 
A Stupid Social Occasion 
Sunday Company in the Parlor 
A Wretched Hovel 
A Forlorn Landscape 
A City on Early Sunday Morning 
The Campus during Vacation 
Five A. M 

NIGHT AND HOME * 

(Mood: quietude and reverence) 

William Makepeace Thackeray 

It is night now: and here is home. Gathered under the quiet 
roof, elders and children lie alike at rest. In the midst of a 
great peace and calm, the stars peep out from the heavens. The 
silence is peopled with the past; sorrowful remorses for sins 
and shortcomings—memories of passionate joys and griefs rise 
out of their graves, both now alike calm and sad. Eyes, as I 
shut mine, look at me, that have long ceased to shine. The 
town and the fair landscape sleep under the starlight, wreathed 
in the autumn mists. Twinkling among the houses a light 
keeps watch here and there, in what may be a sick chamber 
or two. The clock tolls sweetly in the silent air. Here is night 
and rest. An awful sense of thanks makes the heart swell, 

* From “De Juventute” in Roundabout Papers. 

63 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


and the head bow, as I pass to my room through the sleeping 
house, and feel as though a hushed blessing were upon it. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Express reverence or awe in a short theme on one of these topics: 

The Vast Stretch of Prairie 

Sunrise from a Mountain Top 

First View of the Sea 

Looking Down from an Aeroplane 

The Roof Garden at Night 

An Experience That Was Sacred 

When I Knew That the Soul May Be Great. 

SCOTT’S RETURN TO ABBOTSFORD * 

(Mood: mingled joy and pathos) 

J. G. Lockhart 

Scott, who had traveled to Italy in a vain effort to recover his 
health, is here pictured returning to his home. 

At a very early hour on the morning of Wednesday the 11th, 
we again placed him in his carriage, and he lay in the same 
torpid state during the first two stages on the road to Tweed- 
side. But as we descended the vale of the Gala he began to 
gaze about him, and by degrees it was obvious that he was 
recognizing the features of that familiar landscape. Presently 
he murmured a name or two—“Gala Water, surely—Buckholm 
—Torwoodlee.” As we rounded the hill at Ladhope, and the 
outline of the Eildons burst on him, he became greatly excited, 
and when turning himself on the couch his eye caught at length 
his own towers, at the distance of a mile, he sprang up with 
a cry of delight. The river being in flood we had to go round 
a few miles by Melrose bridge, and during the time this occu¬ 
pied, his woods and house being within prospect, it required 

* Life of Scott, Volume IX, Chapter LXXXIII. 

64 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


occasionally both Dr. Watson’s strength and mine, in addition 
to Nicolson’s, to keep him in the carriage. After passing the 
bridge, the road for a couple of miles loses sight of Abbotsford, 
and he relapsed into his stupor; but on gaining the bank imme¬ 
diately above it, his excitement became again ungovernable. 

Mr. Laidlaw was waiting at the porch, and assisted us in 
lifting him into the dining-room, where his bed had been pre¬ 
pared. He sat bewildered for a few moments, and then resting 
his eye on Laidlaw, said, “Ha! Willie Laidlaw! O man, how 
often have I thought of you!” By this time his dogs had 
assembled about his chair—they began to fawn upon him and 
lick his hands, and he alternately sobbed and smiled over them, 
until sleep oppressed him. 

ASSIGNMENT 

In a theme on one of these topics insert touches of joy and also 
touches of sorrow: 

An Afternoon in a Cemetery 
Seeing the Meeting of Friends Long Parted 
The Old Man’s Visit to His Birthplace 
The Place Where I and My Companions Played 
The General’s Visit to the Battlefield on Which He Had Won a 
Bloody Victory 

The Tumble-Down Cottage Round the Corner 
Counted Chickens That Didn’t Hatch. 

LETTER TO MRS. BIXBY 
(Mood: solemn consolation) 

Abraham Lincoln 

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 21, 1864. 

Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts. 

Dear Madam: I have been shown in the files of the War 
Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachu- 

65 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


setts that you are the mother of five sons who have died glori¬ 
ously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must 
be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from 
the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from 
tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the 
thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our 
heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, 
and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, 
and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly 
a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. 

Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 

Abraham Lincoln. 


ASSIGNMENT 

Take one of the following: 

1. Suppose you have known a boy in another town, and now 
hear he has recently died. Write a letter of consolation to his 
mother. 

2. A boy who lives in the same town with you has gone off to col¬ 
lege. In his absence his mother has died. Write him a letter of 
consolation. 

3. You are asked to make an address at a meeting in commemora¬ 
tion of the soldiers in your community who lost their lives in the 
World War. Write the address. 

4. A friend of yours has been thwarted in an effort to bring about 
the adoption of a reform. Write him a letter of consolation. 

5 . Write a theme on the subject: “What the Minister Did when 
Mrs. Chalmers Was in Trouble.” 

DEATH AT SEA * 

(Mood: solemn deprivation) 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr- 

Death is at all times solemn, but never so much so as at sea. 
A man dies on shore; his body remains with his friends, and 

* Two Years Before the Mast, Chapter VI. 

66 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


“the mourners go about the streets;” but when a man falls over¬ 
board at sea and is lost, there is a suddenness in the event, and 
a difficulty in realizing it, which give it an air of awful mys¬ 
tery. A man dies on shore,—you follow his body to the grave, 
and a stone marks the spot. You are often prepared for the 
event. There is always something which helps you to realize 
it when it happens, and to recall it when it has passed. A man 
is shot down by your side in battle, and the mangled body re¬ 
mains an object, and a real evidence; but at sea, the man is 
near you,—at your side,—you hear his voice, and in an instant 
he is gone, and nothing but a vacancy shows his loss. Then, 
too, at sea—to use a homely but expressive phrase—you miss a 
man so much. A dozen men are shut up together in a little 
bark upon the wide, wide sea, and for months and months see 
no forms and hear no voices but their own, and one is taken 
suddenly from among them, and they miss him at every turn. 
It is like losing a limb. There are no new faces or new scenes 
to fill up the gap. There is always an empty berth in the fore¬ 
castle, and one man wanting when the small night-watch is 
mustered. There is one less to take the wheel, and one less to 
lay out with you upon the yard. You miss his form, and the 
sound of his voice, for habit had made them almost necessary 
to you, and each of your senses feels the loss. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Put solemnity and a sense of loss into a short theme on one of 
these topics: 

When My Doll Was Broken 
When They Sold My Pony 

The Old Cat Whose Kittens Had Been Taken from Her 

The Days Following the Death of My Playmate 

When Cousin Jack Moved to Another Town 

A Senior at Graduation Time 

The Day I Hadn’t a Friend in the World. 

67 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


EXPECTING DISCOVERY BY HOSTILE IROQUOIS * 

(Mood: suspense) 

James Fenimore Cooper 

Jasper advanced rapidly but noiselessly to the canoe, and 
with a gentle violence induced Mabel to place herself in such 
an attitude as concealed her entire body, though it would have 
probably exceeded his means to induce the girl so far to lower 
her head that she could not keep her gaze fastened on their 
enemies. He then took his own post near her, with his rifle 
cocked and poised, in readiness to fire. Arrowhead and Chin- 
gachgook crawled to cover, and lay in wait like snakes, with 
their arms prepared for service, while the wife of the former 
bowed her head between her knees, covered it with her calico 
robe, and remained passive and immovable. Cap loosened both 
his pistols in their belt, but seemed quite at a loss what course 
to pursue The Pathfinder did not stir. He had originally 
got a position where he might aim with deadly effect through 
the leaves, and where he could watch the movements of his 
enemies; and he was far too steady to be disconcerted at a 
moment so critical. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Put suspense into a short theme on one of these topics: 

Three on Base and None Out 

The Finish of the Boat Race 

The Last Lap of the Relay Race 

The Final Game of the Tennis Tournament 

Had the Biscuits Burned? 

Stealing Cake and Jam in the Kitchen 

Trying to Get to My Room Late at Night Without Waking the 
Family 

When Nat’s Younger Brother Almost Found Us 


6R 


* The Pathfinder, Chapter TV. 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


Slipping by the Beehive 

Passing the House Where the Savage Dog Was 

While We Waited for the Doctor’s Opinion (Judges’ Decision) 

When We Thought We Heard Burglars 

How I Felt in the Dentist’s Chair. 


THE SOUNDS MADE BY SCREECH OWLS* 

(Mood: eerieness) 

H. D. Thoreau 

When other birds are still the screech owls take up the strain, 
like mourning women their ancient u-lu-lu. Their dismal scream 
is truly Ben Jonsonian. Wise midnight hags! It is no honest 
and blunt tu-whit tu-who of the poets, but, without jesting, a 
most solemn graveyard ditty, the mutual consolations of suicide 
lovers remembering the pangs and the delights of supernal love 
in the infernal groves. Yet I love to hear their wailing, their 
doleful responses, trilled along the woodside; reminding me 
sometimes of music and singing birds; as if it were the dark 
and tearful side of music, the regrets and sighs that would 
fain be sung. They are the spirits, the low spirits and melan¬ 
choly forebodings, of fallen souls that once in human shape 
night-w T alked the earth and did the deeds of darkness, now 
expiating their sins with their wailing hymns or threnodies in 
the scenery of their transgressions. They give me a new sense 
of the variety and capacity of that nature which is our common 
dwelling. Oh-o-o-o-o that I never had been bor-r-r-r-n! sighs 
one on this side of the pond, and circles with the restlessness of 
despaii to some new perch on the gray oaks. Then —that I 
never had been bor-r-r-r-n! echoes another on the farther side 
with tremulous sincerity, and— bor-r-r-r-n! comes faintly from 
far in the Lincoln woods. 


* Walden, Chapter JV. 


69 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


ASSIGNMENT 

Put eerieness into a short theme on one of these topics: 

Strange Sounds at Night 

Staying Alone at Night 

Twilight Where the Frogs Croaked 

A Sentinel on a Dark Night in Hostile Territory 

The Haunted House 

The Hovel where the Old Miser Died 

A Graveyard by Moonlight 

Our Return from Stealing Watermelons 

Uncle Rastus and the Spooks 

Lonesome-Like. 

RIP VAN WINKLE’S RETURN TO THE VILLAGE 

(Mood: bewilderment) 

Washington Irving 

In Irving’s famous story Rip Van Winkle has slept in the hills 
for twenty years, but thinks he has merely been asleep for the night. 
As he returns to the village the changes bewilder him. Note the 
effectiveness of the quotation at the end of the paragraph. 
Hitherto the account has been somewhat general; now it becomes 
almost painfully specific, and through a single utterance enables 
us to look at the situation through Rip’s eyes. 

He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of 
strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing 
at his gray beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized 
for an old acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very 
village was altered; it was larger and more populous. There 
were rows of houses which he had never seen before, and those 
which had been his familiar haunts had disappeared. Strange 
names were over the doors—strange faces at the windows— 
everything was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began 
to doubt whether both he and the world around him were not 
bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left 

70 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 

but the day before. There stood the Kaatskill mountains— 
there ran the silver Hudson at a distance—there was every hill 
and dale precisely as it had always been. Rip was sorely per¬ 
plexed. “That flagon last night,” thought he, “has addled my 
poor head sadly!” 

ASSIGNMENT 

Put bewilderment into a short theme on one of these topics: 

Waking in a Strange Room 

When I Forgot My Own Name 

The Day after Our Last Spring Housecleaning 

Coming To (after being knocked out of your senses) 

The Trick My Rascally Chums Played on Me 

Trying to Play a New Game 

The Savages when the Sun Was Eclipsed 

Old Elkins and the Theory that the Earth Is Round 

Aunt Rachel and the Theory that Sickness Is Due to Germs 

When I Got Lost in the Woods (City Streets) 

Muddling Through. 


THE BABY AND THE UNIVERSE * 

(Mood: dim dawning intelligence) 

Arnold Bennett 

While they had tea, Samuel sitting opposite to his wife, and 
Miss Insull nearly against the wall (owing to the moving of 
the table), the baby rolled about on the hearthrug, which had 
been covered with a large soft woollen shawl, originally the 
property of his great-grandmother. He had no cares, no respon¬ 
sibilities. The shawl was so vast that he could not clearly 
distinguish objects beyond its confines. On it lay an india- 
rubber ball, an indiarubber doll, a rattle, and Fan. He vaguely 
recollected all four items, with their respective properties. The 

* From The Old Wives’ 7 ale (Book II, Chapter III, Sub-Chapter I) by Arnold 
Bennett. Reprinted by permission of the George H. Doran Company, pub¬ 
lishers of all Arnold Bennett’s works in the United States. 

71 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


fire also was an old friend. He had occasionally tried to touch 
it, but a high bright fence always came in between. For ten 
months he had never spent a day without making experiments 
on this shifting universe in which he alone remained firm and 
stationary. The experiments were chiefly conducted out of idle 
amusement, but he was serious on the subject of food. Lately 
the behavior of the universe in regard to his food had somewhat 
perplexed him, had indeed annoyed him. However, he was of 
a forgetful, happy disposition, and so long as the universe con¬ 
tinued to fulfil its sole end as a machinery for the satisfaction, 
somehow, of his imperious desires, he was not inclined to remon¬ 
strate. He gazed at the flames and laughed, and laughed be¬ 
cause he had laughed. He pushed the ball away and wriggled 
after it, and captured it with the assurance of practice. He 
tried to swallow the doll, and it was not until he had tried 
several times to swallow it that he remembered the failure of 
previous efforts and philosophically desisted. He rolled with 
a fearful shock, arms and legs in air, against the mountainous 
flank of that mammoth Fan, and clutched at Fan’s ear. The 
whole mass of Fan upheaved and vanished from his view, and 
was instantly forgotten by him. He seized the doll and tried 
to swallow it, and repeated the exhibition of his skill with the 
ball. Then he saw the fire again and laughed. And so he 
existed for centuries: no responsibilities, no appetites; and the 
shawl was vast. Terrific operations went on over his head. 
Giants moved to and fro. Great vessels were carried off and 
great books were brought and deep voices rumbled regularly 
in the spaces beyond the shawl. But he remained oblivious. 
At last he became aware that a face was looking down at his. 
He recognized it, and immediately an uncomfortable sensation 
in his stomach disturbed him; he tolerated it for fifty years or 
so, and then he gave a little cry. Life had resumed its 
seriousness. 

“Black alpaca. B quality. Width 20, t.a. 22 yards,” Miss 

72 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 

Insull read out of a great book. She and Mr. Povey were 
checking stock. 

And Mr. Povey responded, “Black alpaca B quality. Width 
20, t.a. 22 yards. It wants ten minutes yet.” He had glanced 
at the clock. 

“Does it? said Constance, well knowing that it wanted ten 
minutes. 

The baby did not guess that a high invisible god named 
Samuel Povey, whom nothing escaped, and who could do every¬ 
thing at once, was controlling his universe from an incon¬ 
ceivable distance. On the contrary, the baby was crying to 
himself, There is no God. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Put wonder, a sense of novelty, or the sensation of fresh discovery 
into a short theme on one of these topics: 

When I Caught on to the Joke 

The Bigness of the World in My Childhood 

How Rawlings Learned What Unselfishness Means 

When I Began to See Sense in Algebra 

The Ignoramus and the Printed Page 

My First Day in a City 

My First Formal Dinner 

Long Trousers. 

THE MONOTONY AND HEAT OF THE DESERT * 

(Mood: sultriness) 

A. W. Kinglake 

As long as you are journeying in the interior of the desert 
you have no particular point to make for as your resting-place. 
The endless sands yield nothing but small stunted shrubs; even 
these fail after the first two or three days, and from that time 
you pass over broad plains, you pass over newly reared hills, 


* Eothen, Chapter XVII. 


73 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


you pass through valleys dug out by the last week’s storm; and 
the hills and the valleys are sand, sand, sand, still sand, and 
only sand, and sand, and sand again. The earth is so samely 
that your eyes turn towards heaven—towards heaven, I mean, 
in the sense of sky. You look to the sun, for he is your task¬ 
master, and by him you know the measure of the work that 
you have done, and the measure of the work that remains for 
you to do. He comes when you strike your tent in the early 
morning, and then, for the first hour of the day, as you move 
forward on your camel, he stands at your near side, and makes 
you know that the whole day’s toil is before you; then for a 
while, and a long while, you see him no more, for you are veiled, 
and shrouded, and dare not look upon the greatness of his glory, 
but you know where he strides overhead, by the touch of his 
flaming sword. No words are spoken, but your Arabs moan, 
your camels sigh, your skin glows, your shoulders ache, and for 
sights you see the pattern and the web of the silk that veils 
your eyes, and the glare of the outer light. Time labors on; 
your skin glows, your shoulders ache, your Arabs moan, your 
camels sigh, and you see the same pattern in the silk, and the 
same glare of light beyond; but conquering time marches on, 
and by and by the descending sun has compassed the heaven, 
and now softly touches your right arm, and throws your lank 
shadow over the sand, right along on the way for Persia. Then 
again you look upon his face, for his power is all veiled in 
his beauty, and the redness of flames has become the redness of 
roses; the fair, wavy cloud that fled in the morning now comes 
to his sight once more—comes blushing, yet still comes on, 
comes burning with blushes, yet comes and clings to his side. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Put sultriness into a brief theme on one of these topics: 

Sage-Brush and Cactus 

Crossing the Desert in a Train 


74 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 

A Sweltering Day and an Empty Gasoline Tank 
When the Hot Winds Swept Across the Country 
All Day in the Cornfield 
My First All-Day Job (in summer) 

The Town Square at Noonday in July 
The Sultriness of Country Fairs 
The Slums in Midsummer 
Siesta Time. 


THE HOWLING DERVISHES * 

(Mood: clamorous frenzy) 

■ Amelia B. Edwards 

Softly at first, and one by one, the dervishes took up the 
chant: “Allah! Allah! Allah!” Their heads and their voices 
rose and fell in unison. The dome above gave back a hollow 
echo. There was something strange and solemn in the ceremony. 

Presently, however, the trumpets brayed louder—the voices 
grew hoarser—the heads bowed lower—the name of Allah rang 
out faster and faster, fiercer and fiercer. The leader, himself 
cool and collected, began sensibly accelerating the time of the 
chorus; and it became evident that the performers were pos¬ 
sessed by a growing frenzy. Soon the whole circle was madly 
rocking to and fro; the voices rose to a hoarse scream; and 
only the trumpets were audible above the din. Now and then 
a dervish would spring up convulsively some three or four feet 
above the heads of the others; but for the most part they stood 
rooted firmly to one spot—now bowing their heads almost to 
their feet—now flinging themselves so violently back, that we, 
standing behind, could see their faces foreshortened upside 
down; and this with such incredible rapidity that their long 
hair had scarcely time either to rise or fall, but remained as 
if suspended in mid-air. Still the frenzy mounted; still the 
pace quickened. Some shrieked—some groaned—some, unable 

* A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, Chapter II. 

75 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


to support themselves any longer, were held up in their places 
by the bystanders. All were mad for the time being. Our 
own heads seemed to be going round at last; and more than 
one of the ladies present looked longingly toward the door. It 
was, in truth, a horrible sight, and needed only darkness and 
torchlight to be quite diabolical. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Secure the effect of clamor or physical frenzy in a short theme 
on one of these topics : 

A Rustic “Hoe-Down” 

Camp Meeting 

A Negro Congregation under Emotional Preaching 

A Frenchman Attempting to Converse with an Indian 

An Indian Sun Dance 

The Floor of the Stock Exchange 

A Football Rally 

When We Won the Championship Game 

A Political Convention 

The Barkers for the Sideshows 

The Ribaldry of Those Squirrels 

How the Prairie Dogs “Sassed” Me 

A Bird-Mob Assailing an Owl 

Those Monkeys at the Zoo 

A Menagerie at Mealtime 

Slopping the Hogs. 


OUTDOOR SOUNDS AT NIGHT * 

(Mood: soothing contentment) 

Maurice Thompson 

The first sentence of this selection gives the general situation; the 
last a terse and imaginative summary of what has been told us. 
Between are admirably concrete descriptions of the sounds heard 
by a person who is sleeping out of doors. 

* From “A Fortnight in a Palace of Reeds,” in By-Ways and Bird Notes. 

76 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


When the nights were clear we hung our hammocks in the 
palace, and slept suspended in the perfumed breeze. Often I 
awoke in the small hours and heard the raccoons growling and 
chattering in the brake. At such times the swash of the river 
had a strangely soothing effect, a lullaby of fairy land. 

Will had a nocturnal habit. He would slip forth, when the 
moon shone, long after I had gone to sleep, and the twang of 
his bowstring would startle me from quiet dreams as he let go a 
shaft at an owl or a night heron. Reading over some of the 
notes I made at the time recalls the charmingly unique effect 
of certain sounds heard at waking moments in those out-door 
resting-hours: 

The leaping of bass, for instance, plash, plash, at unequal 
intervals of time and distance, breaking through the supreme 
quiet of midnight, comes to one’s ears with a liquid, bubbling 
accompaniment, not at all like anything else in the world. The 
mocking bird (Mimus polyglottus) often starts from sleep in 
the scented foliage of the sweet-gum to sing a tender medley to 
the rising moon. At such time his voice reflects all the richness 
and shadowy dreamfulness of night. It blends into one’s sense 
of rest and becomes an element of enjoyment after one has fallen 
again into slumber. 

Frogs are night’s buffoons. “Croak, croak, croak,” you hear 
one muttering, and with your eyes yet unopened and the silence 
and stillness of sleep scarcely gone from you, you wonder 
where he is sitting. On what green tussock, with his big eyes 
jetting out and his angular legs akimbo, does he squat? Sud¬ 
denly “Chug!” You know how he leaped up, spread out his 
limbs, turned down his head and struck into the water like a 
shot. You chuckle grimly to yourself, turn over in your ham¬ 
mock, and all is forgotten. 

Then the screech-owl begins to whine in its tremulous, 
querulous falsetto, snapping its beak occasionally as if to re¬ 
mind the mice and small birds of its murderous desires. The 

7 / 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

big horned-owl laughs and hoots far away in gloomy glens. 
The leaves rustle, the river pours on, and the wind sinks and 
swells like the breath of a mighty sleeper. . . . The falling of 
a slight shower of rain, one of those short, light, even down- 
comings of large drops, which is not strong enough to break 
through the leaf-canopy overhead, moves the out-door slumberer 
to most exquisite enjoyment. He opens his eyes and all his 
senses at once. The air has sweet moisture in it, the darkness 
is deep. Above, around, far and near, a tumult is in the leaves. 
The shower is scarcely more than momentary in its duration, 
but it is infinitely suggestive. There are millions of voices 
calling from far and near. Vast organ swells, tender aeolian 
strains, the thrumming of harp-strings and the exquisite quaver- 
ings of the violin. Multitudes clapping hands and crying from 
afar in applause. Then as the cloud passes on, the throbbing 
sounds trail after it, and at length it all dies out beyond the 
hills. 

So our nights were “filled with music” in the Palace of 
Reeds. 


ASSIGNMENT 

Reproduce or suggest as definitely as you can the sounds ap¬ 
propriate to one of these topics: 

Under the Whispering Willows 
The First Night I Slept Outdoors 
A Storm at Night 
The Mosquito’s Midnight Tocsin 

My Auricular Contemplation of Nocturnal Insect Life 
Floating Downstream 

What I Hear when I Keep My Eyes Closed 
The Street Sounds That Come to My Window (draw a contrast 
between sounds by day and sounds by night) 

My Attempt to Sleep Near the Railroad Station 
What I Heard from My Berth in the Pullman 
A Concert Heard amid Gossips and Critics. 

78 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


DOBBIN’S VISIT TO THE RUINED JOHN SEDLEY * 
(Mood: the pathos of a change for the worse) 
William Makepeace Thackeray 

The first of these paragraphs generalizes upon the pathos of a 
ruined man, of his bustle, his hopeless eagerness. The second 
pictures John Sedley in ruin, makes concrete contrast of his old 
self with his new, and closes with a touching statement of his 
humility. 

Mr. Dobbin went to seek John Sedley at his house of call 
in the City, the Tapioca Coffee-House, where, since his own 
offices were shut up, and fate had overtaken him, the poor 
broken-down old gentleman used to betake himself daily, and 
write letters and receive them, and tie them up into mysterious 
bundles, several of which he carried in the flaps of his coat. 
I don’t know anything more dismal than that business and bustle 
and mystery of a ruined man: those letters from the wealthy 
which he shows you: those worn greasy documents promising 
support and offering condolence which he places wistfully before 
you, and on which he builds his hopes of restoration and future 
fortune. My beloved reader has no doubt in the course of his 
experience been waylaid by many such a luckless companion. 
He takes you into the corner; he has his bundle of papers out 
of his gaping coat pocket; and the tape off, and the string in 
his mouth, and the favorite letters selected and laid before 
you; and who does not know the sad eager half-crazy look 
which he fixes on you with his hopeless eyes? 

Changed into a man of this sort, Dobbin found the once 
florid, jovial, and prosperous John Sedley. His coat, that used 
to be so glossy and trim, was white at the seams, and the buttons 
showed the copper. His face had fallen in, and was unshorn; 
his frill and neckcloth hung limp under his bagging waistcoat. 

* Vanity Fair, Chapter XX. 


79 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


When he used to treat the boys in old days at a coffee-house, he 
would shout and laugh louder than anybody there, and have 
all the waiters skipping round him; it was quite painful to 
see how humble and civil he was to John of the Tapioca, a 
blear-eyed old attendant in dingy stockings and cracked pumps, 
whose business it was to serve glasses of wafers, and bumpers 
of ink in pewter, and slices of paper to the frequenters of this 
dreary house of entertainment, where nothing else seemed to be 
consumed. As for William Dobbin, whom he had tipped repeat¬ 
edly in his youth, and who had been the old gentleman’s butt on 
a thousand occasions, old Sedley gave his hand to him in a very 
hesitating humble manner now, and called him “Sir.” A feeling 
of shame and remorse took possession of William Dobbin as 
the broken old man so received and addressed him, as if he 
himself had been somehow guilty of the misfortune which had 
brought Sedley so low. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Make pathos dominate a short theme on one of these topics: 

One Who Had Known Better Days 

The Gratitude Shown Me That Made Me Ashamed 

The Thinker Grown Intellectually Feeble 

The Old Veteran 

An Actor Out of a Job 

The Poor Child That Hangs Round a Hotel Kitchen 
“It Might Have Been” 

A Mountainside Devastated by a Forest Fire 
My Visit to the Poorhouse (Insane Asylum). 

THE HAPPINESS OF NOT BEING RICH* 
(Mood: the joy of hard-earned pleasures) 

Charles Lamb 

“I wish the good old times would come- again,” she said, 
“when we were not quite so rich. I do not mean, that I want 

* From “Old China” in Last Essays of Elia. 

8o 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


to be poor; but there was a middle state;”—so she was pleased 
to ramble on,—“in which I am sure we were a great deal hap¬ 
pier. A purchase is but a purchase, now that you have money 
enough and to spare. Formerly it used to be a triumph. When 
we coveted a cheap luxury (and, O! how much ado I had to 
get you to consent in those times!) we were used to have a 
debate two or three days before, and to weigh the for and against, 
and think what we might spare it out of, and what saving we 
could hit upon, that should be an equivalent. A thing was 
worth buying then, when we felt the money that we paid for it. 

“Do you remember the brown suit, which you made to hang 
upon you, till all your friends cried shame upon you, it grew 
so thread-bare—and all because of that folio Beaumont and 
Fletcher, which you dragged home late at night from Barker’s 
in Covent-garden? Do you remember how we eyed it for weeks 
before we could make up our minds to the purchase, and had 
not come to a determination till it was near ten o’clock of the 
Saturday night, when you set off from Islington, fearing you 
should be too late—and when the old bookseller with some 
grumbling opened his shop, and by the twinkling taper (for 
he was setting bedwards) lighted out the relic from his dusty 
treasures—and when you lugged it home, wishing it were twice 
as cumbersome—and when you presented it to me—and when 
we were exploring the perfectness of it (collating you called it)— 
and while I was repairing some of the loose leaves with paste, 
which your impatience would not suffer to be left till day¬ 
break—was there no pleasure in being a poor man? or can 
those neat black clothes which you wear now, and are so careful 
to keep brushed, since we have become rich and finical, give 
you half the honest vanity, with which you flaunted it about in 
that over-worn suit—your old corbeau—for four or five weeks 
longer than you should have done, to pacify your conscience 
for the mighty sum of fifteen—or sixteen shillings was it?—a 
great affair we thought it then—which you had lavished on the 

81 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


old folio. Now you can afford to buy any book that pleases you, 
but I do not see that you ever bring me home any nice old 
purchases now. 


“You are too proud to see a play anywhere now but in the 
pit. Do you remember where it was we used to sit, when we 
saw the battle of Hexham, and the surrender of Calais, and 
Bannister and Mrs. Bland in the Children in the Wood— 
when we squeezed out our shillings a-piece to sit three or four 
times in a season in the one-shilling gallery—where you felt all 
the time that you ought not to have brought me—and more 
strongly I felt obligation to you for having brought me—and 
the pleasure was the better for a little shame—and when the 
curtain drew up, what cared we for our place in the house, or 
what mattered it where we were sitting, when our thoughts were 
with Rosalind in Arden, or with Viola at the Court of Illyria? 
You used to say, that the gallery was the best place of all for en¬ 
joying a play socially—that the relish of such exhibitions must 
be in proportion to the infrequency of going—that the com¬ 
pany we met there, not being in general readers of plays, 
were obliged to attend the more, and did attend, to what 
was going on, on the stage—because a word lost would 
have been a chasm, which it was impossible for them 
to fill up. With such reflections we consoled our pride 
then—and I appeal to you, whether, as a woman, I met 
generally with less attention and accommodation, than I 
have done since in more expensive situations in the house? The 
getting in indeed, and the crowding up those inconvenient stair¬ 
cases, was bad enough—but there was still a law of civility to 
women recognized to quite as great an extent as we ever found 
in the other passages—and how a little difficulty overcome 
heightened the snug seat, and the play, afterwards! Now we 
can only pay our money, and walk in. You cannot see, you 

82 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


say, in the galleries now. I am sure we saw, and heard too, 
well enough then—but sight, and all, I think, is gone with our 
poverty.” 

ASSIGNMENT 

In a short theme on one of these topics portray the pleasing 
or redeeming side of something regarded as disagreeable: 

The Bright Side of Poverty 

The Joy of Not Having Quite Enough to Eat 

The Satisfaction in Retrimming My Last Year’s Hat 

Something I Would Save My Pennies For (Willingly Wait For) 

‘It Has Its Better Side” 

Compensations for Having to Shine My Own Shoes 

Not Success, but the Struggle 

The Bliss of Being Rejected 

The Heaven of Not Making the Team 

Better Luck Next Time! 

A Fighting Failure. 

A MUSIC STUDENT’S ROOM IN CHICAGO * 

(Effect: drabness) 

Will a Sibert Cather 

Thea’s room was large enough to admit a rented upright 
piano without crowding. It was, the widowed daughter said, 
“a double room that had always before been occupied by two 
gentlemen”; the piano now took the place of a second occupant. 
There was an ingrain carpet on the floor, green ivy leaves on a 
red ground, and clumsy, old-fashioned walnut furniture. The 
bed was very wide, and the mattress thin and hard. Over the 
fat pillows were “shams” embroidered in Turkey red, each 
with a flowering scroll—one with “Gute Nacht,” the other 
with “Guten Morgen.” The dresser was so big that Thea 
wondered how it had ever been got into the house and up the 

* The Song of the Lark, Part II. This selection is used by permission of, 
and by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized 
publishers. 


83 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


narrow stairs. Besides an old horsehair armchair, there were 
two low plush “spring-rockers,” against the massive pedestals 
of which one was always stumbling in the dark. Thea sat in 
the dark a good deal those first weeks, and sometimes a painful 
bump against one of those brutally immovable pedestals roused 
her temper and pulled her out of a heavy hour. The wall-paper 
was brownish yellow, with blue flowers. When it was put on, 
the carpet, certainly, had not been consulted. There was only 
one picture on the wall when Thea moved in: a large colored 
print of a brightly lighted church in a snow-storm, on Christ¬ 
mas Eve, with greens hanging about the stone doorway and 
arched windows. There was something warm and homelike 
about this picture, and Thea grew fond of it. One day, on 
her way into town to take her lesson, she stopped at a book¬ 
store and bought a photograph of the Naples bust of Julius 
Caesar. This she had framed, and hung it on the big bare wall 
behind her stove. It was a curious choice, but she was at the 
age when people do inexplicable things. She had been interested 
in Caesar’s “Commentaries” when she left school to begin teach¬ 
ing, and she loved to read about great generals; but these facts 
would scarcely explain her wanting that grim bald head to 
share her daily existence. It seemed a strange freak, when she 
bought so few things, and when she had, as Mrs. Anderson said 
to Mrs. Lorch, “no pictures of the composers at all.” 

ASSIGNMENT 

Make drabness the note of a short theme on one of these topics: 

A Dingy Interior 

The Dining Room of a Squalid Inn 

That Stuffy Old Parlor 

The Room where the Pictures of the Kinfolks Hang < 

A Pretentiously Ill-Furnished House 

A Settlement Wedding 

The Cold Gray Dawn of the Morning After 

What’s the Use? 


84 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


TEUFELSDROCKH’S VIEW FROM HIS TOWER * 

(Mood: a profound sense of the spiritual and eternal hovering 
over the physical and temporal) 

Thomas Carlyle 

In this description, with its scraps of German phrases, Carlyle 
is at the same time marvelously observant of temporary things 
and mindful of things eternal. The first paragraph gives Teufels- 
drockh’s view by day, the second by night. 

“I look down into all that wasp-nest or bee-hive,” have we 
heard him say, “and witness their wax-laying and honey¬ 
making, and poison-brewing, and choking by sulphur. From 
the Palace esplanade, where music plays while Serene High¬ 
ness is pleased to eat his victuals, down to the low lane, where 
in her door-sill the aged widow, knitting for a thin livelihood, 
sits to feel the afternoon sun, I see it all; for, except the Schloss- 
kirche weathercock, no biped stands so high. Couriers arrive 
bestrapped and bebooted, bearing Joy and Sorrow bagged up 
in pouches of leather: there, top-laden, and with swift horses, 
rolls in the country Baron and his household; here, on timber 
leg, the lamed Soldier hops painfully along, begging alms: a 
thousand carriages, and wains, and cars, come tumbling in with 
Food, with young Rusticity, and other Raw Produce, inanimate 
or animate, and go tumbling out again with Produce manufac¬ 
tured. That living flood, pouring through these streets, of all 
qualities and ages, knowest thou whence it is coming, whither 
it is going? Aus der Ewigkeit, zu der Ewigheit hin: From 
Eternity, onward to Eternity! These are Apparitions: what 
else? Are they not Souls rendered visible; in Bodies, that took 
shape and will lose it; melting into air? Their solid pave¬ 
ment is a Picture of the Sense; they walk on the bosom of 
Nothing, blank Time is behind them and before them. Or 

* Sartor Resartus, Book I, Chapter III. 

85 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


fanciest thou, the red and yellow Clothes-screen * yonder, with 
spurs on its heels, and feather in its crown, is but of To-day, 
without a Yesterday or a To-morrow; and had not rather its 
Ancestor alive when Hengst and Horsa overran thy Island? 
Friend, thou seest here a living link in that Tissue of History, 
which inweaves all Being: watch well, or it will be past thee, 
and seen no more.” 

“Ach, mein Lieber!” said he once, at midnight, when we had 
returned from the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk, “it is a 
true sublimity to dwell here. These fringes of lamplight, strug¬ 
gling up through smoke and thousand-fold exhalation, some 
fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks Bootes of 
them, as he leads his Hunting Dogs over the Zenith in their 
leash of sidereal fire? That stifled hum of Midnight, when 
Traffic has lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, 
still rolling here and there through distant streets, are bearing 
her to Halls roofed in, and lighted to the due pitch for her; 
and only Vice and Misery, to prowl or to moan like nightbirds, 
are abroad: that hum, I say, like the stertorous, unquiet slum¬ 
ber of sick Life, is heard in Heaven! Oh, under that hideous 
coverlet of vapors, and putrefactions, and unimaginable gases, 
what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid! The joyful and 
the sorrowful are there; men are dying there, men are being 
born; men are praying,—on the other side of a brick partition, 
men are cursing; and around them all is the vast, void Night. 
The proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or re¬ 
poses within damask curtains; Wretchedness cowers into truckle- 
beds, or shivers hunger-stricken into its lair of straw: in obscure 
cellars, Rouge-et-Noir languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to 
haggard hungry Villains; while Councillors of-State sit plot¬ 
ting, and playing their high chess-game, whereof the pawns are 
Men. The Lover whispers his mistress that the coach is ready; 
and she, full of hope and fear, glides down, to fly with him 

* That is, a man. 


86 


MOOD, TONE, AND GENERAL EFFECT 


over the borders: the Thief, still more silently, sets-to his pick- 
locks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen first 
snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and 
dancing-rooms, are full of light and music and high-swelling 
hearts; but, in the Condemned Cells, the pulse of life beats 
tremulous and faint, and bloodshot eyes look out through the 
darkness, which is around and within, for the light of a stern 
last morning. Six men are to be hanged on the morrow: comes 
no hammering from the Rabenstein ?—their gallows must even 
now be o’ building. Upwards of five hundred thousand two- 
legged animals without feathers lie round us, in horizontal posi¬ 
tion; their heads all in nightcaps, and full of the foolishest 
dreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers in his 
rank dens of shame; and the Mother, with streaming hair, 
kneels over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked lips only 
her tears now moisten.—All these heaped and huddled together, 
with nothing but a little carpentry and masonry between them;— 
crammed in, like salted fish, in their barrel;—or weltering, 
shall I say, like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed Vipers, each 
struggling to get its head above the others: such work goes on 
under that smoke-counterpane! But I, mein Werther, sit above 
it all; I am alone with the stars.” 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Describe in detail, from memory, one of the following. If 
your description is hazy or inaccurate, rewrite it “with your eye 
on the object.” Add a paragraph commenting upon the spiritual 
import in any way proceeding from it. 

An Indian Penny 

The Exact Order and Structure of Buildings in a Block 

The Colors of My Classmates’ Eyes, and of the Cravats Worn by 
My Classmates Yesterday. 

2. Try to secure something of Carlyle’s combination of sweep 
and minuteness, of corporeal and spiritual, in a short theme on one 
of these topics: 


87 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

The Crowds in the Street 

When I Looked Down from a Tower in the City 
View from a Lofty Mountain 

The Harbor as We Saw It from an Approaching Ship 
The National Convention of a Political Party 
Evening and Dawn in the City 
The Disbanding of an Army at the End of a War 
Thoughts on Beholding the Stars. 

ASSIGNMENT FOR THE SECTION AS A WHOLE 

1. Find paragraphs in “The Morning of Circus Day” (pages 
373-79) which convey a mood effectively. In “Hetty in the Dairy” 
(pages 200-203). 

2. Bring to class the passage in literature which in your judg¬ 
ment best conveys its mood. 


88 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


It is easier to give a theme ideas than an idea. It is easier 
to advance many thoughts than to make the many contribute 
to the prominence and development of one. 

Our trouble springs in part from proneness to deal with the 
irrelevant. The world is filled with by-paths. Things are 
persistently happening around us that have slight traceable 
connection with anything else and that beguile our attention 
without informing our minds. Thus unless our resolution be 
of iron, our thinking is largely a hodgepodge. As surely as it 
is, our writing will also be a hodgepodge. Now the only re¬ 
demption for the literary slattern is pride of workmanship. We 
must be ashamed to sign a theme which we have not rid of 
excrescences. 

Our trouble springs also in part from careless organization. 
It is one thing to write a theme that contains no alien matter. 
It is another and far more difficult thing to write a theme 
which gives proper recognition to the central idea. We may 
so tuck away that idea in the body of the theme, so awkwardly 
state it, so scant the essence of it in emphasizing one of its 
aspects, that none but the most attentive readers will perceive 
with certainty what we are about. Just as the football player 
must always follow the ball, or failing that, must know where 
the ball is in order that he may shape his conduct accordingly, 
so must we never lose sight of the central idea. We must not 
be content that our readers shall be able to get it. We must 

89 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


be determined that, come what will, they shall not be able to 
miss it. We must therefore give it prominence of position, 
state it lucidly, and be willing to engage in “damnable iteration” 
of it rather than let it run risks of passing unperceived or half- 
perceived. 

WARREN HASTINGS AND DAYLESFORD * 

Lord Macaulay 

We have seen in the “Apostrophe to General Warren” (page 
30) that the repetition of a single word may keep before the 
reader or the hearer a central thought or emotion. This para¬ 
graph, though less artificially, employs the same device. The early 
part of the paragraph has a perfunctory service to perform, but the 
latter part deals with a powerful influence upon Hastings—his de¬ 
sire to recover his ancestral estate. Note how the repetition of 
Daylesford gives the word significance. 

Warren, the son of Pvnaston, was born on the sixth of Decem¬ 
ber, 1732. His mother died a few days later, and he was left 
dependent on his distressed grandfather. The child was early 
sent to the village school, where he learned his letters on the 
same bench with the sons of the peasantry; nor did any thing 
in his garb or fare indicate that his life was to take a widely 
different course from that of the young rustics with whom he 
studied and played. But no cloud could overcast the dawn of 
so much genius and so much ambition. The very ploughmen 
observed, and long remembered, how kindly little Warren took 
to his book. The daily sight of the lands which his ancestors 
had possessed, and which had passed into the hands of strangers, 
filled his young brain with wild fancies and projects. He loved 
to hear stories of the wealth and greatness of his progenitors, of 
their splendid housekeeping, their loyalty and their valor. On 
one bright summer day, the boy, then just seven years old, lay on 

* From “Essay on Warren Hastings.” 

90 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of 
his house to join the Isis. There, as threescore and ten years 
later he told the tale, rose in his mind a scheme which, through 
all the turns of his eventful career, was never abandoned. He 
w r ould recover the estate which had belonged to his fathers. 
He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This purpose, formed in 
infancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intellect expanded 
and as his fortune rose. He pursued his plan with that calm 
but indomitable force of will which was the most striking 
peculiarity of his character. When, under a tropical sun, he 
ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his hopes, amidst all the cares 
of war, finance, and legislation, still pointed to Daylesford. 
And when his long public life, so singularly chequered with 
good and evil, with glory and obloquy, had at length closed 
forever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Through repetition give emphasis to a key word connected with 
one of these topics: 

America, the Land I Love 

The Valor of the Three Hundred at Thermopylae 
The Gorgeousness of the Circus Parade (Mardi Gras) 

The Daintiness of Chaucer’s Prioress (any other literary heroine) 
The Good Fellowship of the Christmastide 
The Intensity of My Thirst When I Could Not Get Water 
The Grimness of Hartley’s Resolve to Make That Touchdown 
Gold, the Unhallowed. 

SCENE OF THE TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS * 

Lord Macaulay 

In this selection, as contrasted with the preceding, the central 
idea—the splendor and historic associations of a rich scene and 
setting—is present throughout. It is enforced in part by Macaulay’s 
spectacular description and his resounding roll of great names; 
* From “Essay on Warren Hastings.” 

91 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


in part (during the latter half of the paragraph) through the repe¬ 
tition of the adverb there. 

The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall 
of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclama¬ 
tions at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had 
witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of 
Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a 
moment awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just 
resentment, the hall where Charles had confronted the High 
Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed 
his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The 
avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept 
clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were 
marshalled by the heralds under Garter King-at-arms. The 
judges in their vestments of state attended to give advice on 
points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three fourths 
of the Upper House as the Upper House then was, walked in 
solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tri¬ 
bunal. The junior Baron present led the way, George Eliott, 
Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memorable defence 
of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. 
The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl 
Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the 
brothers and sons of the King. Last of all came the Prince of 
Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The 
grey old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were 
crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or 
the emulations of an orator. There were gathered together, 
from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous 
empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the repre¬ 
sentatives of every science and of every art. There were seated 
round the Queen the fair-haired young daughters of the House 
of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of great Kings and 

02 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


Commonwealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no 
other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in 
the prime of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a 
scene surpassing all the imitations of the stage. There the 
historian of the Roman Empire thought of the days when 
Cicero pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres, and when, 
before a senate which still retained some show of freedom, 
Tacitus thundered against the oppressor of Africa. There were 
seen side by side the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of 
the age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel 
which has preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many 
writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many noble 
matrons. It had induced Parr to suspend his labors in that 
dark and profound mine from which he had extracted a vast 
treasure of erudition, a treasure too often buried in the earth, 
too often paraded with injudicious and inelegant ostentation, 
but still precious, massive, and splendid. There appeared the 
voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir of the throne had 
in secret plighted his faith. There too was she, the beautiful 
mother of a beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia, whose delicate fea¬ 
tures, lighted up by love and music, art has rescued from the 
common decay. There were the members of that brilliant 
society which quoted, criticized, and exchanged repartees, under 
the rich peacock-hangings of Mrs. Montague. And there the 
ladies whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox himself, 
had carried the Westminster election against palace and treas¬ 
ury, shone around Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire. 


ASSIGNMENT 


Give cumulative power to a theme by repeating one of these words 
or phrases: 


Now 

Mine 

Never 

Protest 


Keep on 
Far away 
Honest, forsooth! 
It was he who. 


93 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


THE DESIRE OF HAPPINESS UNIVERSAL * 

Horace Mann 

As suggested in the introduction to “The Democracy of So¬ 
cialism” (pages 8-9), an idea may be kept to the fore through 
expression in a topic sentence at both the beginning and the end. 
The development of an idea thus hedged about may nevertheless 
take various forms. Here the development is largely through ex¬ 
amples, in the next selection through rejecting false definitions and 
then giving the true one. 

I begin with the postulate, that it is the law of our nature to 
desire happiness. This law is not local, but universal; not 
temporary, but eternal. It is not a law to be proved by excep¬ 
tions, for it knows no exception. The savage and the martyr 
welcome fierce pains, not because they love pain, but because 
they love some expected remuneration of happiness so well, that 
they are willing to purchase it at the price of the pain,—at the 
price of imprisonment, torture, or death. The young desire 
happiness more keenly than any others. The desire is innate, 
spontaneous, exuberant; and nothing but repeated and repeated 
overflows of the lava of disappointment can burn or bury it in 
the human breast. On this law of our nature, then, we may 
stand as on an immovable foundation of truth. Whatever for¬ 
tune may befall our argument, our premises are secure. The 
conscious desire of happiness is active in all men. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Start with one of these topic sentences, develop the idea it con¬ 
tains through the body of your theme, and close by repeating the 
topic idea in other words or from another point of view: 

Winter sports are the most enjoyable. 

The cause of most suffering is unequal distribution. 

The rich are less happy than the poor. 

* From “Thoughts for a Young Man.” 

94 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


The doctors are more often inquiring into the condition of the 
teeth. 

There is not enough coercive education in the grades. 

We need a stadium for our athletic contests. 

Many of the things we believe are superstitions. 

bactory-made furniture is less durable than the old handicrafts¬ 
man-made. 

I hold that the game is more important than the score. 

A MAN’S RELIGION ALL-IMPORTANT* 
Thomas Carlyle 

It is well said, in every sense, that a man’s religion is the 
chief fact with regard to him. A man’s, or a nation of men’s. 
By religion I do not mean here the church-creed which he pro¬ 
fesses, the articles of faith which he will sign and, in words 
or otherwise, assert; not this wholly, in many cases not this at 
all. We see men of all kinds of professed creeds attain to 
almost all degrees of worth or worthlessness under each or any 
of them. This is not what I call religion, this profession and 
assertion; which is often only a profession and assertion from 
the outworks of the man, from the mere argumentative region 
of him, if even so deep as that. But the thing a man does prac¬ 
tically believe (and this is often enough without asserting it 
even to himself, much less to others); the thing a man does 
practically lay to heart, and know for certain, concerning his 
vital relations to this mysterious Universe, and his duty and 
destiny there, that is in all cases the primary thing for him, 
and creatively determines all the rest. That is his religion; 
or, it may be, his mere skepticism and no-religion: the manner 
it is in which he feels himself to be spiritually related to the 
Unseen World or No-World; and I say, if you tell me what 
that is, you tell me to a very great extent what the man is, what 
the kind of things he will do is. . . . 

* From “The Hero as Divinity.” 

95 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


ASSIGNMENT 

1. Begin a theme with one of these topic sentences, make every 
sentence and every word you write bear unmistakably on the topic 
idea, and close with a repetition of the topic sentence as indicated: 

I have my ideas as to what a college man’s religion should be. 
. . . Yes, I have, etc. 

It does not pay to be prompt at engagements. . . . No, it does 
not, etc. 

Firkins had pluck. . . . There can’t be any doubt that, etc. 

We talk about the uselessness of memory work, but the lawyer 
who can’t remember facts when he needs them will lose many 
cases. . . . We may talk all we please about the uselessness of 
memory work, but where would the man be who let his power to 
remember atrophy? 

He was not responsible for his actions. . . . Anyone could see 
that he was not responsible, etc. 

It was not the time to try a forward pass. ... It is surely 
evident that it was not, etc. 

We ought to have won that game. ... Yes, siree, we ought, etc. 

You can entice cooperation, but you cannot compel it. . . . En¬ 
ticing cooperation is not a hard task, but you ’ll have your work 
cut out for you if you try to compel it. 

A mule is a most cantankerous critter. ... I repeat that a mule, 
etc. 

It was a problem how we should get our winter supply of coal. 

. . . You see, it really was a problem, etc. 

Saunders liked to hang around and chat. ... I never saw such 
a fellow as Saunders to, etc. 

There should be an open season for bores. . . . Nothing is clearer 
than that there should be, etc. 

I hate cats. ... I certainly hate cats. 

2 . Write a theme of which the first paragraph shall begin with the 
sentence “I dislike clerks,” the second shall begin with the sen¬ 
tence “I dislike woman clerks at soda fountains,” the third with the 
sentence “I dislike dapper young clerks who tell me what to wear,” 
and the fourth with the sentence ‘T dislike elderly clerks who in¬ 
quire about my health and comment on the weather”; and of which 
the last paragraph shall end with the sentence “I have an undying 
antipathy to clerks of every conceivable age, sex, temperament, 
quality, and kind.” 


96 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 

THE LOSS IN CIVILIZATION’S GAINS * 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

Emerson’s thought is usually dispersive rather than highly uni¬ 
fied. But in passages at least, if not in essays as wholes, he fre¬ 
quently attains oneness amid his diversity. Here he makes a topic 
statement, reiterates it in general terms, and then enforces it with 
particular instances. 

All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and 
no man improves. 

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it 
gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is bar¬ 
barous, it is civilized, it is Christianized, it is rich, it is scien¬ 
tific; but this change is not amelioration. For everything that is 
given, something is taken. Society acquires new arts, and loses 
old instincts. What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, 
writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil, and a bill 
of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, wl^ose 
property is a club, a spear, a mat, and an undivided twentieth 
of a shed to sleep under! But compare the health of the two 
men, and you shall see that the white man has lost his aboriginal 
strength. If the traveller tells us truly, strike the savage with 
a broad axe, and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal 
as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow 
shall send the white to his grave. 

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of 
his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support 
of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill 
to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he 
has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, 
the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The 
solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and 

* From “Self-Reliance.” 

97 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his 
mind. His note-books impair his memory; his libraries over¬ 
load his wit; the insurance-office increases the number of acci¬ 
dents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not 
encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, 
by a Christianity entrenched in establishments and forms, some 
vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Chris¬ 
tendom where is the Christian? 

... It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing 
of means and machinery, which were introduced with loud 
laudation a few years or centuries before. The great genius 
returns to essential man. We reckoned the improvements of 
the art of war among the triumphs of science, and yet Napoleon 
conquered Europe by the bivouac, which consisted of falling 
back on naked valor, and disencumbering it of all aids. The 
Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says Las 
Casas, “without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries, 
and carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the 
soldier should receive his supply of corn, grind it in his hand- 
mill, and bake his bread himself.” 

ASSIGNMENT 

Support one of these statements with an array of specific in¬ 
stances : 

The unlettered man may be well-educated. 

Uneducated folk have much useful knowledge that the educated 
classes do not possess. 

Intuition is sometimes a safer guide than thought. 

No statesman is so wise as to see very surely whither humanity 
is tending. 

There appears to be no limit to the achievements of mechanical 
invention. 

The wanton destruction of our forests has had deplorable effects. 

The tendency toward a consolidation of newspapers has been very 
marked of late years. 

08 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


The tendency to specialization is fatal to the production of all¬ 
round men. 

The vast increase of the reading classes means inevitable decline 
in the quality of literature. 

The movies cannot do serious harm to legitimate drama. 

The motion picture because of its powerful appeal to the sense 
of sight will supplant many of our text books as educational 
instruments. 

The true aristocracy is an aristocracy of brains. 

THE STRENUOUS LIFE * 

Theodore Roosevelt 

This the best-known of Roosevelt’s addresses, delivered in Chi¬ 
cago in 1899, contained passages here omitted as no'longer pertinent. 
But the animating thought, the basic principle, is printed in its en¬ 
tirety. Through vigorous and varied reiteration of this principle—• 
strenuous national endeavor—Roosevelt compels us to feel its im¬ 
portance. We may support it or oppose it; we can hardly remain 
indifferent to it. 

In speaking to you, men of the greatest city of the West, 
men of the State which gave to the country Lincoln and Grant, 
men who preeminently and distinctly embody all that is most 
American in the American character, I wish to preach, not the 
doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, 
the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that 
highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires 
mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from 
danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these 
wins the splendid ultimate triumph. 

A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs 
merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after 
great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. 
I ask only that what every self-respecting American demands 
from himself and from his sons shall be demanded of the 

* Reprinted by permission of the Century Co. 

99 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


American nation as a whole. Who among you would teach your 
boys that ease, that peace, is to be the first consideration in their 
eyes—to be the ultimate goal after which they strive? You 
men of Chicago have made this city great, you men of Illinois 
have done your share, and more than your share, in making 
America great, because you neither preach nor practise such 
a doctrine. You work yourselves, and you bring up your sons 
to work. If you are rich and are worth your salt, you will 
teach your sons that though they may have leisure, it is not to 
be spent in idleness; for wisely used leisure merely means that 
those who possess it, being free from the necessity of working 
for their livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some 
kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in 
exploration, in historical research—work of the type we most 
need in this country, the successful carrying out of which reflects 
most honor upon the nation. We do not admire the man of 
timid peace. We admire the man who embodies victorious 
effort; the man who never wrongs his neighbor, who is prompt 
to help a friend, but who has those virile qualities necessary 
to win in the stern strife of actual life. It is hard to fail, but 
it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life we get 
nothing save by effort. Freedom from effort in the present 
merely means that there has been stored up effort in the past. 
A man can be freed from the necessity of work only by the fact 
that he or his fathers before him have worked to good purpose. 
If the freedom thus purchased is used aright, and the man still 
does actual work, though of a different kind, whether as a writer 
or a general, whether in the field of politics or in the field of 
exploration and adventure, he shows he deserves his good for¬ 
tune. But if he treats this period of freedom from the need of 
actual labor as a period, not of preparation, but of mere enjoy¬ 
ment, even though perhaps not of vicious enjoyment, he 
shows that he is simply a cumberer of the earth’s surface, 
and he surely unfits himself to hold his own with his 


ioo 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


fellows if the need to do so should again arise. A mere life 
of ease is not in the end a very satisfactory life, and, above all, 
it is a life which ultimately unfits those who follow it for serious 
work in the world. 

In the last analysis a healthy state can exist only when the 
men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy 
lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, 
not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, 
but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk. The man 
must be glad to do a man’s work, to dare and endure and to 
labor; to keep himself, and to keep those dependent upon him. 
The woman must be the housewife, the helpmeet of the home¬ 
maker, the wise and fearless mother of many healthy chiluren. 
In one of Daudet’s powerful and melancholy books he speaks 
of “the fear of maternity, the haunting terror of the young wife 
of the present day.” When such words can be truthfully written 
of a nation, that nation is rotten to the heart’s core. When men 
fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, 
they tremble on the brink of doom; and well it is that they 
should vanish from the earth, where they are fit subjects for 
the scorn of all men and women who are themselves strong and 
brave and high-minded. 

• •••••« 

We of this generation do not have to face a task such as that 
our fathers faced, but we have our tasks, and woe to us if we 
fail to perform them! We cannot, if we would, play the part 
of China, and be content to rot by inches in ignoble ease within 
our borders, taking no interest in what goes on beyond them, 
sunk in a scrambling commercialism; heedless of the higher 
life, the life of aspiration, of toil and risk, busying ourselves 
only with the wants of our bodies for the day, until suddenly 
we should find, beyond a shadow of question, what China has 
already found, that in this world the nation that has trained 
itself to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease is bound, in the 

TOI 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


end, to go down before other nations which have not lost the 
manly and adventurous qualities. If we are to be a really 
great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part 
in the world. We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that 
we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them 
well or ill. 

• •••••• 

The army and the navy are the sword and the shield which 
this nation must carry if she is to do her duty among the nations 
of the earth—if she is not to stand merely as the China of 
the western hemisphere. Our proper conduct toward the tropic 
islands we have wrested from Spain is merely the form which 
our duty has taken at the moment. Of course we are bound 
to handle the affairs of our own household well. We must see 
that there is civic honesty, civic cleanliness, civic good sense 
in our home administration of city, State, and nation. We 
must strive for honesty in office, for honesty toward the creditors 
of the nation and of the individual; for the widest freedom of 
individual initiative where possible, and for the wisest control 
of individual initiative where it is hostile to the welfare of the 
many. But because we set our own household in order we are 
not thereby excused from playing our part in the great affairs 
of the world. A man’s first duty is to his own home, but he is 
not thereby excused from doing his duty to the State; for if he 
fails in this second duty it is under the penalty of ceasing to be 
a freeman. In the same way, while a nation’s first duty is 
within its own borders, it is not thereby absolved from facing 
its duties in the world as a whole; and if it refuses to do so, 
it merely forfeits its right to struggle for a place among the 
peoples that shape the destiny of mankind. 

• •••••# 

I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country calls 
not for the life of ease but for the life of strenuous endeavor. 
The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many 

102 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful 
ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests 
where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of 
all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will 
pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the 
world. Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute 
to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteous¬ 
ness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, 
to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above all, 
let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without 
the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified, 
for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous en¬ 
deavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national 
greatness. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write as vigorous an exhortation (affirmative or negative) as you 
can on one of these topics: 

The Need for a Larger Army 

The Necessity for More Governmental Attention to Aeronautics 
Less Aloofness on the Part of Our Government from European 
Affairs 

Closer National Cooperation with South American Countries 

Further National Support and Control of Education 

Greater Popular Regard for Law 

A Reform in Judicial Procedure 

Acceptance of the Principle of the Open Shop 

The Greatest Single Need in Our School 

The Spirit That Should Animate Our School 

Better Municipal Government 

A Movement This Community Should Foster. 

A DAY’S WORK ABOARD SHIP* 

Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

The device employed by Mann and Carlyle (pages 94 and 
95) may also be employed in longer compositions. Here the 
* Two Years Before the Mast, Chapter III. 

103 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


author quotes early in his composition a question that is often 
asked, accumulates concrete evidence in answer to it, and in a sum¬ 
marizing sentence repeats the question at the close. 

Before I end my explanations, it may be well to define a 
day’s work, and to correct a mistake prevalent among landsmen 
about a sailor’s life. Nothing is more common than to hear 
people say, “Are not sailors very idle at sea? What can they 
find to do?” This is a natural mistake, and, being frequently 
made, is one which every sailor feels interested in having cor¬ 
rected. In the first place, then, the discipline of the ship requires 
every man to be at work upon something when he is on deck, 
except at night and on Sundays. At all other times you will 
never see a man, on board a well-ordered vessel, standing idle 
on deck, sitting down, or leaning over the side. It is the officers’ 
duty to keep every one at work, even if there is nothing to be 
done but to scrape the rust from the chain cables. In no state 
prison are the convicts more regularly set to work, and more 
closely watched. No conversation is allowed among the crew 
at their duty, and though they frequently do talk when aloft, 
or when near one another, yet they stop when an officer is nigh. 

With regard to the work upon which the men are put, it is 
a matter which probably would not be understood by one who 
has not been at sea. When I first left port, and found that we 
were kept regularly employed for a week or two, I supposed 
that we were getting the vessel into sea trim, and that it would 
soon be over and we should have nothing to do but to sail the 
ship; but I found that it continued so for two years, and at the 
end of the two years there was as much to be done as ever. As 
has often been said, a ship is like a lady’s watch, always out 
of repair. When first leaving port, studding-sail gear is to be 
rove, all the running rigging to be examined, that which is unfit 
for use to be got down, and new rigging rove in its place; then 
the standing rigging is to be overhauled, replaced, and repaired 
in a thousand different ways; and wdierever any of the number- 

104 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


less ropes or the yards are chafing or wearing upon it, there 
“chafing gear,” as it is called, must be put on. This chafing 
gear consists of worming, parcelling, roundings, battens, and 
service of all kinds,—rope-yarns, spun-yarn, marline, and 
seizing-stuffs. Taking off, putting on, and mending the chafing 
gear alone, upon a vessel, would find constant employment for 
a man or two men, during working hours, for a whole voyage. 

The next point to be considered is, that all the “small stuffs” 
which are used on board a ship—such as spun-yarn, marline, 
seizing-stuff, &c., Sic .—are made on board. The owners of a 
vessel buy up incredible quantities of “old junk,” which the 
sailors unlay, and, after drawing out the yarns, knot them 
together, and roll them up in balls. These “rope-yarns” are 
constantly used for various purposes, but the greater part is 
manufactured into spun-yarn. For this purpose, every vessel 
is furnished with a “spun-yarn winch”; which is very simple, 
consisting of a wheel and spindle. This may be heard con¬ 
stantly going on deck in pleasant weather; and we had employ¬ 
ment, during a great part of the time, for three hands, in drawing 
and knotting yarns, and making spun-yarn. 

Another method of employing the crew is “setting-up” rig¬ 
ging. Whenever any of the standing rigging becomes slack 
(which is continually happening), the seizings and coverings 
must be taken off, tackles got up, and, after the rigging is 
bowsed well taut, the seizings and coverings be replaced, which 
is a very nice piece of work. There is also such a connection 
between different parts of a vessel, that one rope can seldom 
be touched without requiring a change in another. You cannot 
stay a mast aft by the back stays, without slacking up the head 
stays, &c., &c. If we add to this all the tarring, greasing, oiling, 
varnishing, painting, scraping, and scrubbing which is required 
in the course of a long voyage, and also remember this is all 
done in addition to watching at night, steering, reefing, furling, 
bracing, making and setting sail, and pulling, hauling, and 

105 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


climbing in every direction, one will hardly ask, “What can a 
sailor find to do at sea?” 

ASSIGNMENT 

In a theme of two or more paragraphs begin and close with one 
of these statements or questions: 

Did n’t I have anything to do ? 

The “good old times’’ must not have been so good after all. 

There is too much of the spirit of jazz in young folks. 

Can a politician keep his hands clean? 

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. 

Can a student put his work first and be popular? 

That is a matter about which people’s notions are all wrong. 

I know what I'd do if I had a million dollars. 

OUR IDEA OF ADVANCEMENT IN LIFE * 

John Ruskin 

Practically, then, at present, “advancement in life” means, 
becoming conspicuous in life; obtaining a position which shall 
be acknowledged by others to be respectable or honorable. We 
do not understand by this advancement, in general, the mere 
making of money, but the being known to have made it; not 
the accomplishment of any great aim, but the being seen to 
have accomplished it. In a word, we mean the gratification of 
our thirst for applause. That thirst, if the last infirmity of 
noble minds, is also the first infirmity of weak ones; and, on 
the whole, the strongest impulsive influence of average human¬ 
ity: the greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable 
to the love of praise, as its greatest catastrophes to the love of 
pleasure. 

I am not about to attack or defend this impulse. I want you 
only to feel how it lies at the root of effort, especially of all 
modern effort. It is the gratification of vanity which is, with us, 

* From Sesame and Lilies. 

106 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


the stimulus of toil and balm of repose; so closely does it touch 
the very springs of life that the wounding of our vanity is 
always spoken of (and truly) as in its measure mortal; we call 
it “mortification,” using the same expression which we should 
apply to a gangrenous and incurable bodily hurt. And although 
few of us may be physicians enough to recognize the various 
effect of this passion upon health and energy, I believe most 
honest men know, and would at once acknowledge, its leading 
power with them as a motive. The seaman does not commonly 
desire to be made captain only because he knows he can manage 
the ship better than any other sailor on board. He wants to 
be made captain that he may be called captain. The clergyman 
does not usually want to be made a bishop only because he 
believes that no other hand can, as firmly as his, direct the 
diocese through, its difficulties. He wants to be made bishop 
primarily that he may be called “My Lord.” And a prince 
does not usually desire to enlarge, or a subject to gain, a king¬ 
dom because he believes that no one else can as well serve the 
State, upon the throne; but, briefly, because he wishes to be 
addressed as “Your Majesty,” by as many lips as may be 
brought to such utterance. 

This, then, being the main idea of “advancement in life,” the 
force of it applies, for all of us, according to our station, par¬ 
ticularly to that secondary result of such advancement which we 
call “getting into good society.” We want to get into good 
society not that we may have it, but that we may be seen in it; 
and our notion of its goodness depends primarily on its 
conspicuousness. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. In what way is the method of the preceding selection adapted 
in the present selection? 

2. Adapt the method in a theme of two or more paragraphs to 
one of these topics: 


107 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


A Business Man’s Idea of Success 

The Change I Most Wish to See Brought About 

What I Would Do “If I Were King” 

A * Narrow-Minded Person’s Conception of What the World 
Should Be 

A Stickler’s Notion of Proper Manners 

What the Student Wishes His School to Stand For 

College Sportsmanship. 


SPAIN AND THE NETHERLANDS * 

John Lothrop Motley 

The method of the two preceding selections is here adapted to 
a contrast. 

The union of no two countries could be less likely to prove 
advantageous or agreeable than that of the Netherlands and 
Spain. They were widely separated geographically, while in 
history, manners, and politics, they were utterly opposed to 
each other. Spain, which had but just assumed the form of a 
single state by the combination of all its kingdoms, with its 
haughty nobles descended from petty kings, and arrogating 
almost sovereign power within their domains, with its fierce 
enthusiasm for the Catholic religion, which, in the course of long 
warfare with the Saracens, had become the absorbing character¬ 
istic of a whole nation, with its sparse population scattered over 
a wide and stern country, with a military spirit which led nearly 
all classes to prefer poverty to the wealth attendant upon degrad¬ 
ing pursuits of trade;—Spain, with her gloomy, martial, and 
exaggerated character, was the absolute contrast of the 
Netherlands. 

These provinces had been rarely combined into a whole, but 
there was natural affinity in their character, history, and posi¬ 
tion. There was life, movement, bustling activity everywhere. 

* The Rise of the Dutch Republic, Volume I, Section X. 

108 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


An energetic population swarmed in all the flourishing cities 
which dotted the surface of a contracted and highly cultivated 
country. Their ships were the carriers for the world;—their 
merchants, if invaded in their rights, engaged in vigorous war¬ 
fare with their own funds and their own frigates; their fabrics 
were prized over the whole earth; their burghers possessed the 
wealth of princes, lived with royal luxury, and exercised vast 
political influence, their love of liberty was their predominant 
passion. Their religious ardor had not been fully awakened; 
but the events of the next generation were to prove that in no 
respect more than in the religious sentiment, were the two races 
opposed to each other. It was as certain that the Netherlander 
w r ould be fierce reformers as that the Spaniards would be uncom¬ 
promising persecutors. Unhallowed was the union between 
nations thus utterly contrasted. 

ASSIGNMENT 

In a theme of two or more paragraphs begin and close with one 
of these topic sentences (modify the form if you wish) : 

There is the greatest contrast imaginable between riding in a 
Pullman and riding in a day coach (riding in a chair car and 
riding in the smoker). 

It is a pleasure to pass from the bustling business section into the 
quiet residential section. 

It was a revelation to Henry to discover so much happiness in 
such humble surroundings. 

A man is never as bad as his worst deed nor as good as his 
best one. 

The district occupied by the mill hands (negroes, Italians, Jews, 
laboring men) is in striking contrast to the district occupied 
by the rich. 

The Northern girl in the South (Southern girl in the North) 
was amazed at the differences in climate. 

It has truly been said that one half of the world does n’t know how 
the other half lives. 

The two parties to the controversy were actuated by different 
motives. 


109 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


ALI ATAR’S LAST FIGHT * 

Washington Irving 

This spirited narrative employs no such device as that of the 
preceding selections, yet keeps an idea before us—that of the old 
man’s unconquerable defiance. 

Loxa was commanded at this time by an old Moorish alcayde, 
whose daughter was the favorite wife of Boabdil el Chico. The 
name of this Moor was Ibrahim Ali Atar, but he was generally 
known among the Spaniards as Alatar. He had grown gray in 
border warfare, was an implacable enemy of the Christians, 
and his name had long been the terror of the frontier. He was 
in the ninetieth year of his age, yet indomitable in spirit, fiery 
in his passions, sinewy and powerful in frame, deeply versed in 
warlike stratagem, and accounted the best lance in all 
Mauritania. . . . 

. . . The pursuit was almost as hazardous as the battle; for, 
had the enemy at any time recovered from their panic, they 
might, by a sudden reaction, have overwhelmed the small force 
of their pursuers. To guard against this peril, the wary count 
kept his battalion always in close order, and had a body of a 
hundred chosen lancers in the advance. The Moors kept up a 
Parthian retreat; several times they turned to make battle; but, 
seeing this solid body of steeled warriors pressing upon them, 
they again took to flight. 

The main retreat of the army was along the valley watered 
by the Xenel, and opening through the mountains of Algaringo 
to the city of Loxa. The alarm-fires of the preceding night 
had roused the country; every man snatched sword and buckler 
from the wall, and the towns and villages poured forth their 
warriors to harass the retreating foe. Ali Atar kept the main 
force of the army together, and turned fiercely from time to time 

* The Conquest of Granada, Chapters X and XVI. 


IIO 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


upon his pursuers; he was like a wolf, hunted through the 
country he had often made desolate by his maraudings. 

The alarm of this invasion had reached the city of Antiquera, 
where were several of the cavaliers who had escaped from the 
carnage in the mountains of Malaga. Their proud minds were 
festering with their late disgrace, and their only prayer was 
for vengeance on the infidels. No sooner did they hear of the 
Moor being over the border, than they were armed and mounted 
for action. Don Alonzo de Aguilar led them forth;—a small 
body of but forty horsemen, but all cavaliers of prowess, and 
thirsting for revenge. They came upon the foe on the banks 
of the Xenel, where it winds through the valleys of Cordova. 
The river, swelled by the late rains, was deep and turbulent, 
and only fordable at certain places. The main body of the 
army was gathered in confusion on the banks, endeavoring to 
ford the stream, protected by the cavalry of Ali Atar. 

No sooner did the little band of Alonzo de Aguilar come in 
sight of the Moors, than fury flashed from their eyes. “Re¬ 
member the mountains of Malaga!” they cried to each other, 
as they rushed to combat. Their charge was desperate, but was 
gallantly resisted. A scrambling and bloody fight ensued, hand 
to hand and sword to sword, sometimes on land, sometimes in 
the water. Many were lanced on the banks; others, throwing 
themselves into the river, sunk with the weight of their armor, 
and were drowned; some, grappling together, fell from their 
horses, but continued their struggle in the waves, and helm and 
turban rolled together down the stream. The Moors were far 
greater in number, and among them were many warriors of 
rank; but they were disheartened by defeat, while the Christians 
were excited even to desperation. 

Ali Atar alone preserved all his fire and energy amid his 
reverses. He had been enraged at the defeat of the army, the 
loss of the king, and the ignominious flight he had been obliged 
to make through a country which had so often been the scene 

iii 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


of his exploits: but to be thus impeded in his flight, and 
harassed and insulted by a mere handful of warriors, roused 
the violent passions of the old Moor to perfect frenzy. He had 
marked Don Alonzo de Aguilar dealing his blows (says Aga- 
pida) with the pious vehemence of a righteous knight, who 
knows that in every wound inflicted upon the infidels, he is 
doing God service. Ali Atar spurred his steed along the bank 
of the river, to come upon Don Alonzo by surprise. The back 
of the warrior was towards him; and, collecting all his force, 
the Moor hurled his lance to transfix him on the spot. The 
lance was not thrown with the usual accuracy of Ali Atar; it 
tore away a part of the cuirass of Don Alonzo, but failed to in¬ 
flict a wound. The Moor rushed upon Don Alonzo with his 
scimitar; but the latter was on the alert, and parried his blow. 
They fought desperately upon the borders of the river, alter¬ 
nately pressing each other into the stream, and fighting their 
way again up the bank. Ali Atar was repeatedly wounded; 
and Don Alonzo, having pity on his age, would have spared 
his life; he called upon him to surrender. “Never,” cried Ali 
Atar, “to a Christian dog!” The words were scarce out of his 
mouth, when the sword of Don Alonzo clove his turbaned 
head, and sank deep into the brain. He fell dead, without a 
groan; his body rolled into the Xenel, nor was it ever found 
and recognised. Thus fell Ali Atar, who had long been the 
terror of Andalusia. As he had hated and warred upon the 
Christians all his life, so he died in the very act of bitter 
hostility. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Keep before us a centralizing idea in a theme on one of these 
topics: 

A Plucky Fight Against Odds 

The Taming of the Bold Bad Man 

The Big Surprise for Mary when She Boiled the Rice 

How Our Teacher “Brought Out” the Backward Student 


112 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


My First Attempt to Eat Olives 

Proposing to Phoebe 

Asking Her Father’s Consent 

Getting That Interview with the Inaccessible Capitalist. 


THE FIRST STAGES IN MAKING CAMP* 
Stewart Edward White 

Suppose you wish your reader, while he is following a sequence 
of thought, to bear another thought constantly in mind. You must 
at frequent intervals and at salient moments give this special thought 
expression. The device is a somewhat unusual one, but like every¬ 
thing else, it should be used when it is needed. It is employed here 
with skill and effect. 

The following is, in brief, what during the next six weeks I 
told that youth, by precept, by homily, and by making the 
solution so obvious that he could work it out for himself. 

When five or six o’clock draws near, begin to look about 
you for a good level dry place, elevated some few feet above 
the surroundings. Drop your pack or beach your canoe. Ex¬ 
amine the location carefully. You will want two trees about 
ten feet apart, from which to suspend your tent, and a bit of 
flat ground underneath them. Of course the flat ground need 
not be particularly unencumbered by brush or saplings, so the 
combination ought not to be hard to discover. Now return to 
your canoe. Do not unpack the tent. 

With the little axe clear the ground thoroughly. By bending 
a sapling over strongly with the left hand, clipping sharply at 
the strained fibers, and then bending it as strongly the other way 
to repeat the axe stroke on the other side, you will find that 
treelets of even two or three inches diameter can be felled by 
two blows. In a very few moments you will have accomplished 
a hole in the forest, and your two supporting trees will stand 

* The Forest, Chapter IV. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday, Page 
& Co. 

113 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

sentinel at either end of a most respectable-looking clearing. 
Do not unpack the tent. 

Now, although the ground seems free of all but unimportant 
growths, go over it thoroughly for little shrubs and leaves. 
They look soft and yielding, but are often possessed of unex¬ 
pectedly abrasive roots. Besides, they mask the face of the 
ground. When you have finished pulling them up by the roots, 
you will find that your supposedly level plot is knotty with hum¬ 
mocks. Stand directly over each little mound; swing the back 
of your axe vigorously against it, adze-wise, between your legs. 
Nine times out of ten it will crumble, and the tenth time means 
merely a root to cut or a stone to pry out. At length you are 
possessed of a plot of clean, fresh earth, level and soft, free 
from projections. But do not unpack your tent. 

Lay a young birch or maple an inch or so in diameter across 
a log. Two clips will produce you a tent-peg. If you are 
inexperienced, and cherish memories of striped lawn markees, 
you will cut them about six inches long. If you are wise and 
old and gray in woods experience, you will multiply that length 
by four. Then your loops will not slip off, and you will have 
a real grip on mother earth, than which nothing can be 
more desirable in the event of a heavy rain and wind squall 
about midnight. If your axe is as sharp as it ought to be, you 
can point them more neatly by holding them suspended in 
front of you while you snip at their ends with the axe, rather 
than by resting them against a solid base. Pile them together 
at the edge of the clearing. Cut a crotched sapling eight or ten 
feet long. Now unpack your tent. 

In a wooded country you will not take the time to fool with 
tent-poles. A stout line run through the eyelets and along the 
apex will string it successfully between your two trees. Draw 
the line as tight as possible, but do not be too unhappy if, after 
your best efforts, it still sags a little. That is what your long 
crotched stick is for. Stake out your four corners. If you get 

114 


KEEPING AN IDEA TO THE FORE 


them in a good rectangle and in such relation to the apex as to 
form two isosceles triangles of the ends, your tent will stand 
smoothly. Therefore, be an artist and do it right. Once the 
four corners are well placed, the rest follows naturally. Occa¬ 
sionally in the North Country it will be found that the soil is 
too thin, over the rocks, to grip the tent-pegs. In that case 
drive them at a sharp angle as deep as they will go, and then 
lay a large flat stone across the slant of them. Thus anchored, 
you will ride out a gale. Finally, wedge your long sapling 
crotch under the line—outside the tent, of course—to tighten it. 
Your shelter is up. If you are a woodsman, ten or fifteen 
minutes has sufficed to accomplish all this. 

ASSIGNMENT 

In successive paragraphs dealing with other matters close with 
one of the following sentences: 

And don’t forget to bring that bag of cookies. 

Be sure to say, “Thank you.” 

Quit lickin’ de spout ob dat muhlasses jug, honey. 

You remember what you promised you’d do. 

Tompkins was resolved to make himself a conspicuous man. 

She peeped into her little pocket-mirror and applied the powder- 
rag to her nose. 

Then the hired man sauntered slowly to the house for a drink. 

ASSIGNMENT FOR THE SECTION AS A WHOLE 

1. Study the repetition of single words in the second and third 
paragraphs from the end of “The Bazaars of Cairo” (page 281). 

2. Write a short theme about the methods employed by some 
speaker who is notable for sticking to the point. 

3. Bring to class an example from literature of the focusing 
of attention upon some idea or emotion. 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


“How shall I begin my theme?” “With what shall I end 
it?” These are two of the questions most vehemently hurled 
by students of composition at the unresponding heavens. 

Good beginnings and endings are important, as well as diffi¬ 
cult. Nothing is of more consequence in your writing than 
“putting your best foot forward” at the outset, unless it be 
“coming in strong at the finish.” We are so made that we 
pay closest heed to what occurs first and what occurs last, that 
our minds receive from these the imprint most nearly indelible. 
If a procession passes you, you will be confident afterward of 
the first members and the last; you wall possibly not so much 
as distinguish at the time those w T ho come midway. If you 
spend an afternoon with a friend, you will carry away a vivid 
recollection of the meeting and the parting, but not of all the 
happenings between whiles. If you are prompt enough at class 
morning after morning, you will soon have committed in their 
order the names that come first on the teacher’s roll and the 
names that come last, but the others will be a jumble to you. 
There is, then, a natural emphasis on initiations and termina¬ 
tions. Of this fact you as a writer should take full advantage. 
A theme that begins well and ends well is pretty sure to be a 
good theme. 

Please if you can at the outset; rivet attention if you can. 
Sometimes you may even, for the sake of attention, start with 
something not connected, or but casually connected, with your 
subject; but no habit is more fatal to good w 7 riting than that 

116 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


of talking around before you begin to talk to the point. More 
important than a pleasant beginning, more important than a 
clever one, is a straightforward one. Generally speaking, the 
more direct you can be, the sooner you get the preliminaries 
over, the more swiftly you launch your reader on the full tide of 
your subject, the better and more satisfactorily you make your 
start. Besides getting down to business yourself, you convince 
your reader that you really mean business—and that is a great 
advantage. All in all, the best way to begin is to know what 
it is you would say about your subject and then just begin. 

And the best way to end is to end. Get in a telling blow 
if you can, send a back illumination over the course you have 
come, gather up the essence of the matter in one unforgettable 
sentence, give a teasing final twist to the thought that will 
reveal, after all, other possible attitudes, other possible interpre¬ 
tations. Any one of these courses is to be recommended. But 
at all costs end. Do not mar the impressiveness of the material 
you have unfolded by a faltering or long-drawn close. 

All this requires judgment. Every phase of the work in 
theme-writing does. But taste is a valuable auxiliary to judg¬ 
ment. Taste shows itself first in the power to recognize the 
things done artistically by somebody else. It presently passes 
over to an instinct for doing them artistically yourself. Your 
first step is therefore to understand, to appreciate, to respond to 
the achievements wrought by other writers. 

The selections given in this section concern themselves with 
narrative. Good beginnings and endings for other kinds of com¬ 
position may be found elsewhere in this volume. Reference may 
be made to two: “The Supremacy of Character over Brains and 
Brawn” on pages 36-37, and “The Renaissance of the Puppet 
Play” on pages 358-61. 

ii 7 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER 

(Beginning) 

Son coeur est un luth suspendu; 

Sitot qu’on le touche il resonne. 

BERANGER. 

Edgar Allan Poe 

The three elements of narrative are background (or setting), 
characters, and plot. Which of these shall receive the greatest 
emphasis depends upon the temperament of the writer and his pur¬ 
pose in the particular story; but the element which is intended to 
be most important is normally given prominence at the outset and 
again at the close. Our first four selections are from stories in 
which background is dominant. Poe’s “Fall of the House of Usher” 
is most of all remarkable for its ominous atmosphere, and this at¬ 
mosphere is created at the very beginning. 

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the 
autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in 
the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through 
a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, 
as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the mel¬ 
ancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with 
the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom 
pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was 
unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, 
sentiment with which the mind usually receives even the sternest 
natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the 
scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple land¬ 
scape features of the domain, upon the bleak walls, upon the 
vacant eye-like windows, upon a few rank sedges, and upon a 
few white trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of 
soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly 
than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium: the bitter 
lapse into every-day life, the hideous dropping off of the veil. 

118 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an 
unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the 
imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was 
it—I paused to think—what was it that so unnerved me in the 
contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all 
insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that 
crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back 
upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, 
there are combinations of very simple natural objects which 
have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this 
power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was 
possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the 
particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be 
sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate, its capacity for 
sorrowful impression; and acting upon this idea, I reined my 
horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay 
in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with 
a shudder even more thrilling than before—upon the remodeled 
and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree- 
stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows. 

ASSIGNMENT 

In a paragraph or two on one of the following topics create the 
atmosphere appropriate to a story: 

The Haunted House in Which We Were to Spend the Night 
The Ominous Conduct of the Landlord at Whose Inn I Had 
Stopped 

The Extreme Friendliness of That Confidence Man 
When I Knew That Something Was Wrong at School 
The Man Who Kept Following Me 
The Shadow on the Window Curtain 

Queer Things That Used to Happen the Night before Christmas 
How I Surmised That Those Girls (Boys) Were Cherishing a 
Secret 

The Approach to the Ambush (misgivings of the white men who 
yet did not suspect the presence of Indians). 

i IQ 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH 
(Beginning and Ending) 

Edgar Allan Poe 

This selection illustrates the encasing of a story within an at¬ 
mosphere. The sequence is as follows: the atmosphere is given and 
the story begun; then the story is ended and the atmosphere re-? 
stored and made supreme. Note too the use of contrast: the at¬ 
mosphere is one of horror, but massed for its exclusion are “all 
the appliances of pleasure’’—appliances which prove futile and by 
their futility make the horror more profound. 

The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No 
pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its 
avatar and its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There 
were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse 
bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon 
the body, and especially upon the face, of the victim were the 
pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sym¬ 
pathy of his fellowmen. And the whole seizure, progress, and 
termination of the disease were the incidents of half an hour. 

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sa¬ 
gacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he sum¬ 
moned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends 
from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these 
retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. 
This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation 
of the Prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and 
lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The 
courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers, 
and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither 
of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of 
frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With 
such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. 

120 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime 
it was folly to grieve, or to think. The Prince had provided 
all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there 
were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were mu¬ 
sicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security 
were within. Without was the “Red Death.” 

• • • • • • o 

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral 
image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more 
fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) 
he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment, with a strong 
shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow 
reddened with rage. 

“Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who 
stood near him—“who dares insult us with this blasphemous 
mockery? Seize him and unmask him—that we may know 
whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!” 

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the 
Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang through¬ 
out the seven rooms loudly and clearly—for the Prince was a 
bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the 
waving of his hand. 

It was in the blue room where stood the Prince, with a group 
of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a 
slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the 
intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, 
with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the 
speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad 
assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, 
there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, 
unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the Prince’s person; 
and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank 
from the centers of the rooms to the walls, he made his way 
uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step 

121 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue 
chamber to the purple—through the purple to the green— 
through the green to the orange—through this again to the 
white—and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement 
had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the 
Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his 
own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six 
chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly 
terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, 
and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or 
four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having at¬ 
tained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly 
and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the 
dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, 
instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. 
Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the 
revelers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, 
seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motion¬ 
less within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable 
horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask, 
which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by 
any tangible form. 

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. 
He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped 
the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died 
each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the 
ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the 
flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and 
the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all. 

NOTE 

A selection like the foregoing is better suited to study and analysis 
than to imitation. To write both the beginning and the ending of 
a story without writing the story itself would be too largely a mere 
literary tour dc force. Wherever under Beginnings and Endings an 

x 22 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


assignment would inevitably result in an artificial exercise, the assign¬ 
ment is omitted. 


RASSELAS 

(Beginning) 

Samuel Johnson 

“Have you read Rasselas?” a man of culture was asked. “Yes,” 
he replied; “that is, I’ve read the first sentence.” The criticism im¬ 
plicit in this utterance is sound. Rctsselcis is a story illustrative of 
a single idea—and that idea is clearly and completely expressed in 
the opening sentence. 

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and 
pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that 
age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies 
of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to 
the history of Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a narrative which amplifies or enforces the idea of the 
sentence from Rasselas. (Substitute for Rasselas, if you wish, 
Hogan the hodman, Norah the cook, an ambitious sophomore, or 
any one else familiar to you.) 

IN THE MATTER OF A PRIVATE * 
(Beginning and Ending) 

Rudyard Kipling 

As “The Masque of the Red Death” illustrates the enclosure of 
a story within an atmosphere, this selection illustrates the enclosure 
of a story within an idea—the idea that criminal outbreaks may be 
strikingly similar to petty, even innocent, offences. 

People who have seen, say that one of the quaintest spectacles 
of human frailty is an outbreak of hysterics in a girls’ school. 

* From the Windsor Edition of Kipling’s Works. George Sully & Co. 

123 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


It starts without warning, generally on a hot afternoon, among 
the elder pupils. A girl giggles till the giggle gets beyond 
control. Then she throws up her head, and cries, “Honk, honk, 
honk,” like a wild goose, and tears mix with the laughter. If 
the mistress be wise, she will rap out something severe at this 
point to check matters. If she be tender-hearted, and send for 
a drink of water, the chances are largely in favor of another 
girl laughing at the afflicted one and herself collapsing. Thus 
the trouble spreads, and may end in half of what answers to 
the Lower Sixth of a boys’ school rocking and whooping to¬ 
gether. Given a week of warm weather, two stately promenades 
per diem, a heavy mutton and rice meal in the middle of the 
day, a certain amount of nagging from the teachers, and a few 
other things, some amazing effects develop. At least, this is 
what folk say who have had experience. 

Now, the Mother Superior of a Convent and the Colonel of 
a British Infantry Regiment would be justly shocked at any 
comparison being made between their respective charges. But 
it is a fact that, under certain circumstances, Thomas in bulk 
can be worked up into dithering, rippling hysteria. He does 
not weep, but he shows his trouble unmistakably, and the 
consequences get into the newspapers, and all the good people 
w r ho hardly know a Martini from a Snider say: “Take away 
the brute’s ammunition!” 

Thomas is n’t a brute, and his business, which is to look 
after the virtuous people, demands that he shall have his am¬ 
munition to his hand. He doesn’t wear silk stockings, and he 
really ought to be supplied with a new Adjective to help him 
express his opinions: but, for all that, he is a great man. If 
you call him “the heroic defender of the national honor” one 
day, and “a brutal and licentious soldiery” the next, you nat¬ 
urally bewilder him, and he looks upon you with suspicion. 
There is nobody to speak for Thomas except people who have 
theories to work off on him; and nobody understands Thomas 

124 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


except Thomas, and he does not always know what is the matter 
with himself. , 

That is the prologue. This is the story: 

*•••••• 

And they hanged Private Simmons—hanged him as high 
as Haman in hollow square of the regiment; and the Colonel 
said it was Drink; and the Chaplain was sure it was the Devil; 
and Simmons fancied it was both, but he didn’t know, and 
only hoped his fate would be a warning to his companions; 
and half a dozen “intelligent publicists” wrote six beautiful 
leading articles on “The Prevalence of Crime in the Army.” 

But not a soul thought of comparing the “bloody-minded 
Simmons” to the squawking, gaping schoolgirl with which this 
story opens. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Think of some piece of conduct that you consider vicious or in¬ 
explicable. Think next of some other piece of conduct that you con¬ 
sider harmless, yet after all akin to the other. Write a story which 
brings out this kinship and makes us more charitable in judgment. 


THE MAN WHO WAS * 

(Beginning and Ending) 

Rudyard Kipling 

“The Man Who Was” is a story encased within an attitude to 
a people, the Russians. The story itself is here omitted, but the 
beginning and ending show the attitude clearly. Observe the 
sequence: first paragraph, a generalization about Russians; second, 
a characterization of a particular Russian; next (in the omitted 
portion), the story itself; at the end, first the disposal of the indi¬ 
vidual, and then a vigorous reminder of the attitude to the race. 
Note that the humor throughout has sinister implications, and that 
our interest and misgivings are aroused at once. “The Man Who 
Was” relies heavily upon the use of background; in another sense 

* From the Windsor Edition of Kipling’s Works. George Sully & Co. 

125 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


it might almost be regarded as a characterization, through narra¬ 
tive, of a people. Like the next selection, it represents the transi¬ 
tion from stories of background to stories of character. 

Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful 
person till he tucks his shirt in. As an oriental he is charming. 
It is only when he insists upon being treated as the most east¬ 
erly of Western peoples, instead of the most westerly of Easterns, 
that he becomes a racial anomaly extremely difficult to handle. 
The host never knows which side of his nature is going to 
turn up next. 

Dirkovitch was a Russian—a Russian of the Russians, as 
he said—who appeared to get his bread by serving the czar 
as an officer in a Cossack regiment, and corresponding for a 
Russian newspaper with a name that was never twice the 
same. He was a handsome young Oriental, with a taste for 
wandering through unexplored portions of the earth, and he 
arrived in India from nowhere in particular. At least no 
living man could ascertain whether it was by way of Balkh, 
Budukhshan, Chitral, Beloochistan, Nepaul, or anywhere else. 
The Indian government, being in an unusually affable mood, 
gave orders that he was to be civilly treated, and shown every¬ 
thing that was to be seen; so he drifted, talking bad English 
and worse French, from one city to another till he foregathered 
with her Majesty’s White Hussars in the city of Peshawur, 
which stands at the mouth of that narrow swordcut in the hills 
that men call the Khyber Pass. He was undoubtedly an officer, 
and he was decorated, after the manner of the Russians, with 
little enameled crosses, and he could talk, and (though this 
has nothing to do with his merits) he had been given up as a 
hopeless task or case by the Black Tyrones, who, individually 
and collectively, with hot whisky and honey, mulled brandy 
and mixed spirits of all kinds, had striven in all hospitality to 
make him drunk. And when the Black Tyrones, who are ex¬ 
clusively Irish, fail to disturb the peace of the head of a for- 

126 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


eigner, that foreigner is certain to be a superior man. This 
was the argument of the Black Tyrones, but they were ever an 
unruly and self-opinionated regiment, and they allowed junior 
subalterns of four years’ service to choose their wines. The 
spirits were always purchased by the colonel and a committee 
of majors. And a regiment that would so behave may be re¬ 
spected but cannot be loved. 

• •••••• 

But that was a matter suddenly and swiftly taken from the 
loving hands of the White Hussars. The lieutenant had re¬ 
turned only to go away again three days later, when the wail 
of the “Dead March” and the tramp of the squadrons told the 
wondering station, that saw no gap in the table, an officer of 
the regiment had resigned his new commission. 

And Dirkovitch—bland, supple, and always genial—went 
away too by a night train. Little Mildred and another saw him 
off, for he was the guest of the mess, and even had he smitten 
the colonel with the open hand, the law of the mess allowed 
no relaxation of hospitality. 

“Good-bye, Dirkovitch, and a pleasant journey,” said little 
Mildred. 

“Au revoir, my true friends,” said the Russian. 

“Indeed! But we thought you were going home?” 

“Yes; but I will come again. My friends, is that road shut?” 
He pointed to where the north star burned over the Khyber 
Pass. 

“By Jove! I forgot. Of course. Happy to meet you, old 
man, any time you like. Got everything you want—cheroots, 
ice, bedding? That’s all right. Well, au revoir, Dirkovitch.” 

“Urn,” said the other man, as the tail-lights of the train 
grew small. “Of—all—the—unmitigated”- 

Little Mildred answered nothing, but watched the north star, 
and hummed a selection from a recent burlesque that had much 
delighted the White Hussars. It ran: 

127 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


“I’m sorry Mr. Bluebeard, 

I’m sorry to cause him pain; 

But a terrible spree there’s sure to be 
When he comes back again.” 

CRANFORD 

(Beginning) 

Mrs. Elizabeth C. Gaskell 

This selection summarizes the human setting for a story of which 
the human setting in large measure is the story. 

In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; 
all the holders of houses, above a certain rent, are women. If 
a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentle¬ 
man disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being 
the only man in the Cranford evening parties, or he is accounted 
for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely engaged in 
business all the week in the great neighboring commercial town 
of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, 
whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford. 
What could they do if they were there? The surgeon has his 
round of thirty miles, and sleeps at Cranford; but every man 
cannot be a surgeon. For keeping the trim gardens full of 
choice flowers without a weed to speck them; for frightening 
away little boys who look wistfully at the said flowers through 
the railings; for rushing out at the geese that occasionally ven¬ 
ture into the gardens if the gates are left open; for deciding all 
questions of literature and politics without troubling themselves 
with unnecessary reasons or arguments; for obtaining clear and 
correct knowledge of everybody’s affairs in the parish; for keep¬ 
ing their neat maid-servants in admirable order; for kindness 
(somewhat dictatorial) to the poor, and real tender good offices 
to each other whenever they are in distress,—the ladies of 

128 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


Cranford are quite sufficient. “A man,” as one of them observed 
to me once, “is so in the way in the house!” Although the 
ladies of Cranford know all each other’s proceedings, they are 
exceedingly indifferent to each other’s opinions. Indeed, as each 
has her own individuality, not to say eccentricity, pretty strongly 
developed, nothing is so easy as verbal retaliation; but, some¬ 
how, good-will reigns among them to a considerable degree. 

The Cranford ladies have only an occasional little quarrel, 
spirted out in a few peppery words and angry jerks of the 
heads; just enough to prevent the even tenor of their lives from 
becoming too flat. Their dress is very independent of fashion; 
as they observe, “What does it signify how we dress here at 
Cranford, where everybody knows us?” And if they go from 
home, their reason is equally cogent, “What does it signify how 
we dress here, where nobody knows us?” The materials of 
their clothes are, in general, good and plain, and most of them 
are nearly as scrupulous as Miss Tyler, of cleanly memory; but 
I will answer for it, the last gigot, the last tight and scanty 
petticoat in wear in England, was seen in Cranford—and seen 
without a smile. 


ASSIGNMENT 

Prepare the way for a story by characterizing in two or three 
paragraphs one of the following groups: 

The cowboys on the ranch 

The negroes in their quarters 

The sailors in the forecastle 

The soldiers in the barracks 

The sewing circle in the president’s parlor 

The poor folk in the slums 

The miners round the evening fire 

The gamblers round the table 

The lumbermen in camp 

The team before the game starts 

The group at the employment office 

The loafers on the park benches. 

129 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


PRIDE AND PREJUDICE 
(Beginning) 

Jane Austen 

Pride and Prejudice, though famous for its background (setting), 
is more still a story of character. After an initial generalization 
which hints of plot, it proceeds to a conversation in which two of 
the characters reveal themselves and the story is quietly launched. 
Note the various paraphrases for she said. 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in 
possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. 

However little known the feelings or views of such a man 
may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so 
well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is 
considered as the rightful property of some one or other of 
their daughters. 

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have 
you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?” 

Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. 

“But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, 
and she told me all about it.” 

Mr. Bennet made no answer. 

“Do not you want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife 
impatiently. 

“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.” 

This was invitation enough. 

“Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Nether¬ 
field is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north 
of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and 
four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that 
he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take 
possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to 
be in the house by the end of next week.” 

130 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


“What is his name?” 

“Bingley.” 

“Is he married or single?” 

“Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large 
fortune; four or five thousand a-year. What a fine thing for 
our girls!” 

“How so? how can it affect them?” 

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” replied his wife, “how can you be so 
tiresome! you must know that I am thinking of his marrying 
one of them.” 

“Is that his design in settling here?” 

“Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely 
that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you 
must visit him as soon as he comes.” 

“I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or 
you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still 
better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley 
might like you the best of the party.” 

“My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of 
beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. 
When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give 
over thinking of her own beauty.” 

“In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think 
of.” 

“But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when 
he comes into the neighborhood.” 

“It is more than I engage for, I assure you.” 

“But consider your daughters. Only think what an estab¬ 
lishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady 
Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account, for in 
general, you know, they visit no newcomers. Indeed you must 
go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him if you do 
not.” 

“You are over-scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley 

131 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you 
to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he 
chooses of the girls: though I must throw in a good word for 
my little Lizzy.” 

“I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better 
than the others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as 
Jane, nor half so good-humored as Lydia. But you are always 
giving her the preference.” 

“They have none of them much to recommend them,” replied 
he; “they are all silly and ignorant, like other girls; but Lizzie 
has something more of quickness than her sisters.” 

“Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such 
a way! You take delight in vexing me. You have no com¬ 
passion on my poor nerves.” 

“You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your 
nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention 
them with consideration these twenty years at least.” 

“Ah! you do not know what I suffer.” 

“But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many 
young men of four thousand a-year come into the neighbor¬ 
hood.” 

“It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since 
you will not visit them.” 

“Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will 
visit them all.” 

Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic 
humor, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and- 
twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand 
his character. Her mind was less difficult to develop. She was 
a woman of mean understanding, little information, and un¬ 
certain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself 
nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters 
married; its solace was visiting and news. 


132 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Decide whether you think the beginning would be better if 
the first two paragraphs were omitted, and the information they 
contain were brought in elsewhere. 

2. Is the last paragraph necessary? Is it an artistic beauty or 
an artistic blemish? Does it merely summarize what you have per¬ 
ceived for yourself? 

3. Write as nearly in Jane Austen’s style as possible what you 
think should happen next. Then turn to the novel and see what did 
happen. Does the author “follow up” this selection well? 

4. Characterize, at least partly through conversation, one of the 
following: 

The Newcomer in Our Community 

A Man Who Teases His Wife 

A Woman of Whom People Make Fun. 

MARKHEIM 

(Ending) 

Robert Louis Stevenson 

“Markheim” is a psychological story. It has an ending that we 
should attribute to Stevenson’s sense of plot were it not still more 
the outgrowth of the character of the person depicted. Markheim, 
a well-meaning but morally weak man whose course in life has 
been constantly downward, kills a master whose servant is absent 
and whose money he then searches for. He is surprised by the ap¬ 
pearance of a visitant who will assist him in the search but only 
at the price of his spiritual well-being. 

At this moment, the sharp note of the door-bell rang through 
the house; and the visitant, as though this were some concerted 
signal for which he had been waiting, changed at once in his 
demeanor. 

“The maid!” he cried. “She has returned, as I forewarned 
you, and there is now before you one more difficult passage. 
Her master, you must say, is ill; you must let her in, with an 

i33 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


assured but rather serious countenance—no smiles, no over¬ 
acting, and I promise you success! Once the girl within, and 
the door closed, the same dexterity that has already rid you of 
the dealer will relieve you of this last danger in your path. 
Thenceforward you have the whole evening—the whole night, 
if needful—to ransack the treasures of the house and to make 
good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the mask 
of danger. Up!” he cried, “up, friend; your life hangs 
trembling in the scales; up, and act!” 

Markheim steadily regarded his counsellor. “If I be con¬ 
demned to evil acts,” he said, “there is still one door of freedom 
open—I can cease from action. If my life be an ill thing, I 
can lay it down. Though I be, as you say truly, at the beck of 
every small temptation, I can yet, by one decisive gesture, place 
myself beyond the reach of all. My love of good is damned to 
barrenness; it may, and let it be! But I have still my hatred 
of evil; and from that, to your galling disappointment, you shall 
see that I can draw both energy and courage.” 

The features of the visitor began to undergo a wonderful and 
lovely change: they brightened and softened with a tender 
triumph; and, even as they brightened, faded and dislimned. 
But Markheim did not pause to watch or understand the trans¬ 
formation. He opened the door and went downstairs very 
softly, thinking to himself. His past went soberly before him; 
he beheld it as it was, ugly and strenuous like a dream, random 
as chance-medley—a scene of defeat. Life, as he thus reviewed 
it, tempted him no longer; but on the further side he perceived 
a quiet haven for his bark. He paused in the passage, and 
looked into the shop, where the candle still burned by the dead 
body. It was strangely silent. Thoughts of the dealer swarmed 
into his mind, as he stood gazing. And then the bell once more 
broke out into impatient clamor. 

He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something 
like a smile. 


i34 




BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 

“You had better go for the police,” said he: “I have killed 
your master.” 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. As largely as possible in Stevenson’s style, tell the rest of the 
life-story of Markheim. 

2. Write an account of how some person’s better nature asserts 
itself in the face of temptation or against his material interests. 

A LICKPENNY LOVER* 

(Beginning and Ending) 

O. Henry 

Though background is an important element in “A Lickpenny 
Lover” (for the environment of the heroine has a molding in¬ 
fluence upon her), the narrative really represents a transition from 
stories of character to stories of plot. The surprising reversal in 
the situation at the close is typical of O. Henry yet not merely ar¬ 
bitrary ; it is in large measure due to the experience and limitations 
of the girl herself. We remember about equally the girl and the 
surprise. 

There were 3,000 girls in the Biggest Store. Masie was one 
of them. She was eighteen and a saleslady in the gents’ gloves. 
Here she became versed in two varieties of human beings—the 
kind of gents who buy their gloves in department stores and 
the kind of women who buy gloves for unfortunate gents. Be¬ 
sides this wide knowledge of the human species, Masie had 
acquired other information. She had listened to the promul¬ 
gated wisdom of the 2,999 other girls and had stored it in a 
brain that was as secretive and wary as that of a Maltese cat. 
Perhaps nature, foreseeing that she would lack wise counsellors, 
had mingled the saving ingredient of shrewdness along with her 
beauty, as she has endowed the silver fox of the priceless fur 
above the other animals with cunning. 

* From The Voice of the City. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday, 

Page & Co. 


135 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

For Masie was beautiful. She was a deep-tinted blonde, 
with the calm poise of a lady who cooks butter cakes in a 
window. She stood behind her counter in the Biggest Store; 
and as you closed your hand over the tape-line for your glove 
measure you thought of Hebe; and as you looked again you 
wondered how she had come by Minerva’s eyes. 

When the floorwalker was not looking Masie chewed tutti 
frutti; when he was looking she gazed up as if at the clouds 
and smiled wistfully. 

That is the shopgirl smile, and I enjoin you to shun it unless 
you are well fortified with callosity of the heart, caramels and 
a congeniality for the capers of Cupid. This smile belonged 
to Masie’s recreation hours and not to the store; but the floor¬ 
walker must have his own. He is the Shylock of the stores. 
When he comes nosing around the bridge of his nose is a toll- 
bridge. It is goo-goo eyes or “git” when he looks toward a 
pretty girl. Of course not all floorwalkers are thus. Only a 
few days ago the papers printed news of one over eighty years 
of age. 

One day Irving Carter, painter, millionaire, traveller, poet, 
automobilist, happened to enter the Biggest Store. It is due 
to him to add that his visit was not voluntary. Filial duty 
took him by the collar and dragged him inside, while his mother 
philandered among the bronze and terra-cotta statuettes. 

Carter strolled across to the glove counter in order to shoot 
a few minutes on the wing. His need for gloves was genuine; 
he had forgotten to bring a pair with him. But his action 
hardly calls for apology, because he had never heard of glove- 
counter flirtations. 

As he neared the vicinity of his fate he hesitated, suddenly 
conscious of this unknown phase of Cupid’s less worthy 
profession. 

••••••• 

But Carter persisted. And at length he reached the flimsy, 

136 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


fluttering little soul of the shopgirl that existed somewhere deep 
down in her lovely bosom. His words penetrated the heart 
whose very lightness was its safest armor. She looked up at 
him with eyes that saw. And a warm glow visited her cool 
cheeks. Tremblingly, awfully, her moth wings closed, and she 
seemed about to settle upon the flower of love. Some faint 
glimmer of life and its possibilities on the other side of her 
glove counter dawned upon her. Carter felt the change and 
crowded the opportunity. 

“Marry me, Masie,” he whispered softly, “and we will go 
away from this ugly city to beautiful ones. We will forget 
work and business, and life will be one long holiday. I know 
where I should take you—I have been there often. Just think 
of a shore where summer is eternal, where the waves are always 
rippling on the lovely beach and the people are happy and free 
as children. We will sail to those shores and remain there as 
long as you please. In one of those far-away cities there are 
grand and lovely palaces and towers full of beautiful pictures 
and statues. The streets of the city are water, and one travels 
about in-” 

“I know,” said Masie, sitting up suddenly. “Gondolas.” 

“Yes,” smiled Carter. 

“I thought so,” said Masie. 

“And then,” continued Carter, “we will travel on and see 
whatever we wish in the world. After the European cities we 
will visit India and the ancient cities there, and ride on 
elephants and see the wonderful temples of the Hindoos and 
Brahmins and the Japanese gardens and the camel trains and 
chariot races in Persia, and all the queer sights of foreign 
countries. Don’t you think you would like it, Masie?” 

Masie rose to her feet. 

“I think we had better be going home,” she said, coolly. “It’s 
getting late.” 

Carter humored her. He had come to know her varying, 

137 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


thistle-down moods, and that it was useless to combat them. 
But he felt a certain happy triumph. He had held for a mo¬ 
ment, though but by a silken thread, the soul of his wild 
Psyche, and hope was stronger within him. Once she had 
folded her wings and her cool hand had closed about his own. 

At the Biggest Store the next day Masie’s chum, Lulu, way¬ 
laid her in an angle of the counter. 

“How are you and your swell friend making it?” she asked. 

“Oh, him?” said Masie, patting her side curls. “He ain’t 
in it any more. Say, Lu, what do you think that fellow wanted 
me to do?” 

“Go on the stage?” guessed Lulu, breathlessly. 

“Nit; he’s too cheap a guy for that. He wanted me to marry 
him and go down to Coney Island for a wedding tour!” 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a story in which one person completely misunderstands 
what another proposes, desires, or intends. 

THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO 
(Beginning) 

Edgar Allan Poe 

Note the abrupt opening of this story of plot. Not a word is 
wasted. Not a needless detail receives mention. We are apprised 
of the general situation, and of what the narrator made up his mind 
to do about it. An account of how he carried out his intention con¬ 
stitutes the story. 

The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best 
could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. 
You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, 
however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would 
be avenged; this was a point definitely settled—but the very 
definiteness with which it was resolved precluded the idea of 

138 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A 
wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. 
It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself 
felt as such to him who has done the wrong. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a narrative on one of these topics: 

How Alice Got Even 

How I Evened the Score 

The Blackfoot Warrior’s Revenge 

Paying Jiggs Back. 

A FOG IN SANTONE* 

(Beginning) 

O. Henry 

Though character receives emphasis in “A Fog in Santone,” the 
story is primarily one of plot. A situation is given, and the general 
course of the action hinted. What we wish to know is what hap¬ 
pened. 

The drug clerk looks sharply at the white face half concealed 
by the high-turned overcoat collar. 

“I would rather not supply you,” he said doubtfully. “I sold 
you a dozen morphine tablets less than an hour ago.” 

The customer smiles wanly. “The fault is in your crooked 
streets. I didn’t intend to call upon you twice, but I guess I 
got tangled up. Excuse me.” 

He draws his collar higher, and moves out, slowly. He stops 
under an electric light at the corner, and juggles absorbedly 
with three or four little pasteboard boxes. “Thirty-six,” he 
announces to himself. “More than plenty.” For a gray mist 
had swept upon Santone that night, an opaque terror that laid 
a hand to the throat of each of the city’s guests. It was com- 

* From Rolling Stones. Reprinted by permission of Doubleday, Page & Co. 

139 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


puted that three thousand invalids were hibernating in the town. 
They had come from far and wide, for here, among these con¬ 
tracted river-sliced streets, the goddess Ozone has elected to 
linger. 

ASSIGNMENT 
Finish the story for yourself. 


THE THREE MUSKETEERS 
(Beginning) 

Alexander Dumas 

We have had clear illustrations of the combining of background 
with character in a story, and of character with plot, but not as 
yet of background with plot. This selection affords the needed il¬ 
lustration. Dumas’ great story of adventure has a definite period 
and definite social conditions as its setting; he must make this 
period and these conditions clear. Note how skilfully he inter¬ 
weaves the exposition with narrative. In the first paragraph he 
arouses our interest by telling us there was a hubbub in a hostelry 
in Meung. In the second he rapidly summarizes those general con¬ 
ditions of which this hubbub was typical—and brings us back to 
the hostelry. In the third he briefly informs us that the cause of 
this hubbub was apparent to all. Thus he has brought us into 
both the story and the environment at once. Should we read on, 
we should find him proceeding with equal artistic skill. Thus in 
the fourth paragraph he describes his hero, in the fifth his hero’s 
horse, and from the sixth to the eleventh as much of his hero’s past 
history as we need know, winding up with the young man’s arrival at 
Meung. Thus we are kept in suspense about what happened at 
the hostelry, are never permitted to forget the hubbub, and yet are 
informed as if by mere chance of many things imperative to our 
understanding of the story. 

On the first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the bourg’ 
of Meung, in which the author of the “Romance of the Rose” 
was born, appeared to be in as perfect a state of revolution as 
if the Huguenots had just made a second Rochelle of it. Many 

140 


BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


citizens, seeing the women flying toward the High Street, leav¬ 
ing their children crying at the open doors, hastened to don the 
cuirass, and, supporting their somewhat uncertain courage with 
a musket or a partizan, directed their steps toward the hostelry 
of the Franc-Meunier, before which was gathered, increasing 
every minute, a compact group, vociferous and full of curiosity. 

In those times panics were common, and few days passed 
without some city or other enregistering in its archives an 
event of this kind. There were nobles who made war against 
each otjher; there was the king, who made war against the 
cardinal; there was Spain, which made war against the king. 
Then, in addition to these, concealed or public, secret or 
patent wars, there were, moreover, robbers, mendicants, Hu¬ 
guenots, wolves, and scoundrels who made war upon every¬ 
body. The citizens always took up arms readily against thieves, 
wolves, or scoundrels—often against nobles or Huguenots— 
sometimes against the king—but never against the cardinal or 
Spain. It resulted, then, from this habit, that on the said 
first Monday of the month of April, 1625, the citizens, on 
hearing the clamor, and seeing neither the red and yellow 
standard, nor the livery of the Duke de Richelieu, rushed toward 
the hostel of the Franc-Meunier. 

When arrived there, the cause of this hubbub was apparent 
to all. 

THE PROCURATOR OF JUDEA* 

(Ending) 

Anatole France 

This story is in itself one of character, yet what we most re¬ 
member about it is the final, breath-taking turn of plot. The situ¬ 
ation is as follows: Lselius Lamia, a sensualist who during exile 
from Rome has spent part of his time with Pontius Pilate in Judea, 
years afterward meets Pilate again. Pilate is now an old man, living 

* From Mother of Pearl. Published by the John Lane Co., 1908. 

141 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


in Sicily and afflicted with gout. They discourse together at length 
about past happenings—Pilate’s conflict with the consul and Lamia’s 
moral derelictions. Regarding the latter, Pilate chides Lamia. 

The man who had suffered exile under Tiberius was no 
longer listening to the venerable magistrate. Having tossed off 
his cup of Falernian, he was smiling at some image visible 
to his eye alone. 

After a moment’s silence he resumed in a very deep voice, 
which rose in pitch by little and little— 

“With what languorous grace they dance, those Syrian 
women! I knew a Jewess at Jerusalem who used to dance 
in a poky little room, on a threadbare carpet, by the light of 
one smoky little lamp, waving her arms as she clanged her 
cymbals. Her loins arched, her head thrown back, and, as it 
were, dragged down by the weight of her heavy red hair, her 
eyes swimming with voluptuousness, eager, languishing, com¬ 
pliant, she would have made Cleopatra herself grow pale with 
envy. I was in love with her barbaric dances, her voice—a 
little raucous and yet so sweet—her atmosphere of incense, the 
semi-somnolescent state in which she seemed to live. I fol¬ 
lowed her everywhere. I mixed with the vile rabble of soldiers, 
conjurers, and extortioners with which she was surrounded. 
One day, however, she disappeared, and I saw her no more. 
Long did I seek her in disreputable alleys and taverns. It 
was more difficult to learn to do without her than to lose 
the taste for Greek wine. Some months after I lost sight 
of her, I learned by chance that she had attached herself to a 
small company of men and women who were followers of a 
young Galilean thaumaturgist. His name was Jesus; he came 
from Nazareth, and he was crucified for some crime, I don’t 
quite know what. Pontius, do you remember anything about the 
man?” 

Pontius Pilate contracted his brows, and his hand rose to his 

142 



BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS 


forehead in the attitude of one who probes the deeps of memory. 
Then after a silence of some seconds— 

“Jesus?” he murmured, “Jesus—of Nazareth? I cannot 
call him to mind.” 

ASSIGNMENT FOR THE SECTION AS A WHOLE 

1. Find a story beginning at the wrong point or in the wrong 
way. 

2. Find a story ending at the wrong point or in the wrong way. 

3. You probably recall from your general reading some begin¬ 
ning that has haunted your memory. If so, reexamine that be¬ 
ginning and try to find the technical reasons for its effectiveness. 
Do the same by some ending that has especially struck you. 


143 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


Oral discourse is sometimes formal, but most of the talk 
that we hear or ourselves engage in is informal. There is 
a delight in free, spontaneous, somewhat rambling speech that 
is different in kind from the delight to be found in speech 
consciously fitted to a deliberate purpose. 

So with written discourse. We like to break away some¬ 
times from the writing that is rigidly ordered and take the 
easy pleasure of the writing that goes its own gait. Some 
of the happiest effects in literature are the casual—or the ap¬ 
parently casual. Telling strokes in composition, as of ath¬ 
letic prowess, may come from sudden inspiration, but they are 
founded on hours of weary practice. They please because they 
are sure, have in them the evidence of mastery that yet looks 
as if for the moment it but half exerts itself. Writing that 
moves along lightly and freely yet without shambling care¬ 
lessness, that departs from strict form without falling into vul¬ 
garity and disorder, is like a well-bred person in his most com¬ 
panionable mood. It makes known its undisguised spirit— 
and yet carries an assurance of other spiritual resources we may 
some day come to know too. 

THE BEST PROSPECT IN SCOTLAND * 

James Boswell 

This selection is an example of the narration of simple incidents. 
It also shows the influence of point of view: Boswell disliked Gold- 

* From Life of Johnson. 


144 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 

smith, and was himself a native of the country here ridiculed, 
Scotland. 

Mr. Ogilvie was unlucky enough to choose for the topic of 
his conversation, the praises of his native country. He began 
with saying, that there was very rich land around Edinburgh. 
Goldsmith, who had studied physic there, contradicted this, very 
untruly, with a sneering laugh. Disconcerted a little by this, 
Mr. Ogilvie then took a new ground, where, I suppose, he 
thought himself perfectly safe; for he observed that Scotland 
had a great many noble wild prospects. Johnson: “I be¬ 
lieve, sir, you have a great many. Norway, too, has noble wild 
prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild 
prospects. But, sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which 
a Scotchman ever sees is the high-road that leads him to 
England!” This unexpected and pointed sally produced a 
roar of applause. After all, however, those, who admire the 
rude grandeur of nature, cannot deny it to Caledonia. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Rewrite the incident from the standpoint of (a) Goldsmith, 
(b) Mr. Ogilvie. 

2. Write a short theme on one of these topics: 

The Wittiest Rejoinder I Ever Heard 

How Edna Proved Herself a Clever Conversationalist 

Why-and I Are Not Friends 

The First Quarrel between the Newlyweds 
What Willie Said to His Sister’s Beau 
I Never Felt So Cheap in My Life 
Mother Settled the Argument 

Mrs. - Has the Last Word 

My Father’s Favorite Story 
An Anecdote That Amuses Me 

How Aunt Sarah Turned the Tables on the Sewing Machine Agent 
An Incident from History 
A Striking Incident from Literature. 

145 




CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


HOW I BOUGHT THE COLT * 

Ulysses S. Grant 

. . . . Chilton is reported as having told of an earlier horse- 
trade of mine. As he told the story, there was a Mr. Ralston 
living within a few miles of the village, who owned a colt which 
I very much wanted. My father had offered twenty dollars for 
it, but Ralston wanted twenty-five. I was so anxious to have 
the colt that after the owner left I begged to be allowed to take 
him at the price demanded. My father yielded, but said twenty 
dollars was all the horse was worth, and told me to offer that 
price; if it was not accepted I was to offer twenty-two and a 
half, and if that would not get him, to give the twenty-five. 
I at once mounted a horse and went for the colt. When I got 
to Mr. Ralston’s house I said to him: “Papa says I may offer 
you twenty dollars for the colt, but if you won’t take that, 
I am to offer twenty-two and a half, and if you won’t take 
that to give you twenty-five.” It would not take a Connecticut 
man to guess the price finally agreed upon. White’s story is 
nearly true. I certainly showed very plainly that I had come 
for the colt, and meant to have him. I could not have been 
over eight years old at the time. This transaction caused me 
great heartburning. The story got out among the boys of the 
village, and it was a long time before I heard the last of it. .. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a short theme on one of these topics: 

How I Was Skinned in a Trade 

A Bad Bargain 

How the Stranger Took Advantage of Me 

The Trick That Some of Us Played 

Cheating the Cheater 

* Personal Memoirs, Volume I, Chapter I. Reprinted by permission of the 
Century Co. 

146 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


That Snipe-Hunting Trip 
Putting Salt on a Bird’s Tail 
How I Failed to Show Foresight 
How I Leaped Before I Looked 
The Most Foolish Thing I Ever Did. 

PERSUADING JOHNSON TO DINE WITH WILKES * 

James Boswell 

My worthy booksellers and friends Messieurs Dilly in the 
Poultry, at whose hospitable and well-covered table I have seen 
a greater number of literary men than at any other, except 
that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, had invited me to meet Mr. 
Wilkes and some more gentlemen, on Wednesday, May 15. 
“Pray,” said I, “let us have Dr. Johnson.”—“What, with Mr. 
Wilkes? not for the world,” said Mr. Edward Dilly: “Dr. 
Johnson would never forgive me.” “Come,” said I, “if you’ll 
let me negotiate for you I will be answerable that all shall go 
well.” Dilly: “Nay, if you will take it upon you, I am 
sure I shall be very happy to see them both here.” 

Notwithstanding the high veneration which I entertained 
for Dr. Johnson, I was sensible that he was sometimes a little 
actuated by the spirit of contradiction, and by means of that I 
hoped I should gain my point. I was persuaded, that if I 
had come upon him with a direct proposal, “Sir, will you dine 
in company with Jack Wilkes?” he would have flown into a 
passion, and would probably have answered, “Dine with Jack 
Wilkes, Sir! I’d as soon dine with Jack Ketch.” f I there¬ 
fore, while we were sitting quietly by ourselves at his house in 
an evening, took occasion to open my plan thus:—“Mr. Dilly, 
Sir, sends his respectful compliments to you, and would be happy 
if you would do him the honor to dine with him on Wednes¬ 
day next along with me, as I must soon go to Scotland.” 

* From Life of Johnson. 

t A notorious hangman of the preceding century. 

147 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Johnson: “Sir, I am obliged to Mr. Dilly. I will wait upon 
him—” Boswell: “Provided, Sir, I suppose, that the com¬ 
pany which he is to have, is agreeable to you.” Johnson: 
“What do you mean, Sir? What do you take me for? Do 
you think I am so ignorant of the world, as to imagine that 
I am to prescribe to a gentleman what company he is to have 
at his table?” Boswell: “I beg your pardon, sir, for wishing 
to prevent you from meeting people whom you might not like. 
Perhaps he may have some of what he calls his patriotic 
friends with him.” Johnson: “Well, Sir, and what then? 
What care / for his patriotic friends? Poh!” Boswell: “I 
should not be surprised to find Jack Wilkes there.” Johnson: 
“And if Jack Wilkes should be there, what is that to me, 
Sir? 'My dear friend, let us have no more of this. I am 
sorry to be angry with you; but really it is treating me strangely 
to talk to me as if I could not meet any company whatever, oc¬ 
casionally.” Boswell: “Pray forgive me, Sir: I meant well. 
But you shall meet whoever comes, for me.” Thus I secured 
him, and told Dilly that he would find him very well pleased 
to be one of his guests, on the day appointed. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Write a brief account of what you suppose must have taken 
place at the dinner. 

2. Write a brief theme on one of these topics: 

Circumventing Mary the Contrary 
Persuading Aunt Cecilia to Go up in an Aeroplane 
Uncle Zeb’s Newfangled Pipe 
Postum or Coffee? 

Tricking Old Mr. Prejudice 

A Clever Piece of Diplomacy 

How We Overcame Aspinwall’s Scruples 

How I Dealt with a Whim Tactfully 

How Burton Promised More than He Meant To 

Inducing a Scared Child to Try to Swim 

148 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


The Revolt of Mother 

Naming the Baby 

How Mrs. Fiske Forced Mrs. Royster to Speak to Her. 

MY FIRST ENTRANCE INTO PHILADELPHIA * 

Benjamin Franklin 

I have been the more particular in this description of my 
journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you 
may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the 
figure I have since made there. I was in my working-dress, 
my best clothes being to come round by sea. I was dirty from 
my journey, my pockets were stuffed out with shirts and stock¬ 
ings, and I knew no soul nor where to look for lodging. I 
was fatigued with traveling, rowing, and want of rest; I was 
very hungry; and my whole stock of cash consisted of a Dutch 
dollar and about a shilling in copper. The latter I gave the 
people of the boat for my passage, who at first refused it, on 
account of my rowing; but I insisted on their taking it, a 
man being sometimes more generous when he has but little 
money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear of being 
thought to have but little. 

Then I walked up the street, gazing about till near the 
market-house I met a boy with bread. I had made many a meal 
on bread, and, inquiring where he got it, I went immediately 
to the baker’s he directed me to, in Second Street, and asked 
for biscuit, intending such as we had in Boston; but they, it 
seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I asked for a 
threepenny loaf, and was told they had none such. So, not 
considering or knowing the difference of money, and the 
greater cheapness nor the names of his bread, I bade him give 
me threepenny worth of any sort. He gave me, accordingly, 
three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at the quantity, but 

From the Autobiography. 

149 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


took it, and, having no room in my pockets, walked off with a 
roll under each arm, and eating the other. Thus I went up 
Market Street as far as Fourth Street, passing by the door of 
Mr. Read, my future wife’s father, when she, standing at the 
door, saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most 
awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and went down 
Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, eating my roll all 
the way, and, coming round, found myself again at Market 
Street wharf, near the boat I came in, to which I went for a 
draught of the river water, and, being filled with one of my 
rolls, gave the other two to a woman and her child that came 
down the river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go 
farther. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a short theme on one of these topics: 

* 

How I Proved Myself a Bumpkin 

A City Boy in the Country 

When I Failed to See the Point 

How I Got Caught Playing Hookey 

How Jane Rode the Horse 

How Phineas Cooked Dinner 

How I Got Out of a Scrape 

An Awkward Situation 

Why Mr. York Is Still Single 

My First Experience in Roller-Skating 

The Funniest Proposal I Ever Heard Of 

How I Should Like for My Future Husband to Propose to Me 
What I Would Do if a Burglar Got In. 


A YANKEE DAMN * 

Harriet Beecher Stowe 

Though Sam abhorred all profanity, yet for seasons of ex¬ 
treme provocation he was well provided with that gentler 

* Oldtown Folks, Chapter XXX. 


150 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


Yankee litany which affords to the irritated mind the com¬ 
fort of swearing, without the commission of the sin. Under 
great pressure of provocation Sam Lawson freely said, “Darn 
it!” The word “darn,” in fact, was to the conscientious New 
England mind a comfortable resting-place, a refreshment to the 
exacerbated spirit, that shrunk from that too similar word with 
an m in it. 

In my boyhood I sometimes pondered that other hard word, 
and vaguely decided to speak it, with that awful curiosity which 
gives to an unknown sin a hold upon the imagination. What 
would happen if I should say “damn”? I dwelt on that subject 
with a restless curiosity which my grandmother certainly would 
have told me was a temptation of the Devil. The horrible 
desire so grew on me, that once, in the sanctity of my own 
private apartment, with all the doors shut and locked, I thought 
I would boldly try the experiment of saying “damn” out loud, 
and seeing what would happen. I did it, and looked up appre¬ 
hensively to see if the walls were going to fall on me, but they 
did n’t, and I covered up my head in the bedclothes and felt de¬ 
graded. I had committed the sin, and got not even the excite¬ 
ment of a catastrophe. The Lord apparently did not think 
me worth his notice. 


ASSIGNMENT 

Write a short theme on one of these topics: 

A Thing Forbidden 

Unclean, Unclean 

How I Took the Bits in My Teeth 

My Most Awful Infraction of Parental Law 

The Thing That Grandmother Forbade 

Aunt Isabel’s Japanese Vase 

My First Fishing Trip on Sunday 

My First Cigarette 

My Big Brother’s Razor 

The Dare I Would n’t Take. 

I5i 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


GETTING A PERMANENT WAVE * 

Joseph Hergesheimer 

In this selection note how skillfully the conversation, description, 
and action are blended. Observe that the reader’s impression of the 
scene is largely derived through Linda’s reactions to what she sees. 

In a recurrence of her surprising concern of the day before 
Mrs. Condon declined to leave her dearest Linda alone; and, 
their arms caught together in a surging affection, they walked 
down Fifth Avenue toward the hair-dresser’s. There was a 
diffused gray sparkle of sunlight—it was early for the throngs— 
through which they passed rapidly to the accompaniment of a 
rapid eager chatter. Linda wore a deep smooth camel’s hair 
cape, over which her intense black hair poured like ink, and 
her face was shaded by a dipping green velvet hat. Her 
mother, in one of the tightly cut suits she affected, had never 
been more like a perfect companion. 

They saw, in the window of a store for men, a set of violent 
purple wool underwear, and barely escaped hysterics at the 
thought of Mr. Moses Feldt in such a garb. They giggled 
idiotically at the spectacle of a countryman fearfully making the 
sharp descent from the top of a lurching omnibus. And then, 
when they had reached the place of Mrs. Condon’s appointment, 
stopped at the show of elaborately waved hair on wax heads and 
chose which, probably, would resemble the elder and which, in 
a very short while now, Linda. 

There was an impressive interior, furnished in gray panels 
and silvery wood; and the young woman at the desk was more 
surprisingly waved than anything they had yet seen. M. Joseph 
would be ready almost immediately; and in the meanwhile 
Mrs. Condon could lay aside her things in preparation for the 

* From Linda Condon, chapters IX and X. Reprinted by permission of Alfred 
A. Knopf, Incorporated. 


152 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


hair to be washed. She did this while Linda followed every 
movement with the deepest interest. 

At the back of the long room was a succession of small 
alcoves, each with an important-looking chair and mirror and 
shelves, a white basin, water-taps and rubber tubes. Settled in 
comfort, Mrs. Condon’s hair was spread out in a bright metal 
tray fastened to the back of the chair, and the attendant, a moist 
tired girl in a careless waist, sprayed the short thick gold-colored 
strands. 

“My,” she observed, “what some wouldn’t give for your shade! 
Never been touched, I can see, either. A lady comes in with real 
Titian, but yours is more select. It positively is. Lillian 
Russell.” While she talked her hands sped with incredible 
rapidity and skill. “The gentlemen don’t notice it; of 
course not; oh, no! There was a girl here, a true blonde, 
but she didn’t stay long—her own car, yes, indeed. Married 
her right out of the establishment. There wasn’t any nonsense 
to her. 

“So this is your little girl! I’d never have believed it. Not 
that she has n’t a great deal of style, a great deal—almost, you 
might say, like an Egyptian. In the movies last night; her all 
over. It’s a type that will need studying. Bertha Kalich. But 
for me-” 

Already, Linda saw, this part of the operation was done. 
The girl wheeled into position a case that had a fan and ring 
of blue flickering flames, and a cupped tube through which hot 
air was poured over her mother’s head. M. Joseph strutted in, 
a small carefully dressed man with a diminutive pointed gray 
beard and formal curled mustache. He spoke with what Linda 
supposed was a French accent, and his manners, at least to 
them, were beautiful. But because the girl had not put out the 
blue flames quickly enough he turned to her with a voice of 
quivering rage. 

It was so unexpected, in the middle of his bowing and smooth 

i53 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

assurances, that Linda was startled, and had to think about 
him all over. The result of this was a surprising dislike; 
she hated, even, to see him touch her mother, as he unneces¬ 
sarily did in directing them into the enclosure for the perma¬ 
nent wave. 

The place itself filled her with the faint horror of instruments 
and the unknown. Above the chair where Mrs. Condon now sat 
there was a circle in the ceiling like the base of a chandelier and 
hanging down from it on twisted green wires were a great 
number of the strangest things imaginable: they were as thick 
as her wrist, but round, longer and hollow, white china inside 
and covered with brown wrapping. The wires of each, she 
discovered, led over a little wheel and down again to a swinging 
clock-like weight. In addition to this there were strange 
depressing handles on the wall by a dial with a jiggling needle 
and clearly marked numbers. 

The skill of the girl who had washed her mother’s hair, 
however, was slight compared with M. Joseph’s dexterity. The 
comb flashed in his white narrow hands; in no time at all every 
knot was urged out into a shining smoothness. “Just the front?” 
he inquired. Not waiting for Mrs. Condon’s reply, he detached 
a strand from the mass over her brow, impaled it on a hairpin, 
while he picked up what might have been a thick steel knitting- 
needle with one end fastened in the middle of a silver quarter. 
The latter, it developed, had a hole in it, through which he 
drew the strand of hair, and then wrapped it with an angry 
tightness about the long projection. 

At this exact moment a new girl, but tired and moist, ap¬ 
peared, took a hank of white threads from a dressing-table, and 
tied that separate lock firmly. This, Linda counted, was 
repeated fifteen times; and when it was accomplished she was 
unable to repress a nervous laughter. Really, her mother looked 
too queer for words: the long rigid projections stood out all over 
her head like—like a huge pincushion; no, it was a porcupine. 

i54 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 

Mrs. Condon smiled in uncertain recognition of her daughter’s 
mirth. 

Then Linda’s attention followed M. Joseph to a table against 
a partition, where he secured a white cotton strip from a film of 
them soaking in a shallow tray, took up some white powder on 
the blade of a dessert knife and transferred it to the strip. 
This he wrapped and wrapped about the hair fastened on a 
spindle, tied it in turn, and dragged down one of the brown 
objects on wires, which, to Linda’s great astonishment, fitted 
precisely over the cotton-bound hair. Again, fifteen times, 
M. Joseph did this, fastening each connection with the turn of 
a screw. When so much was accomplished her mother’s hair, it 
seemed, had grown fast to the ceiling in a tangle of green ends. 
It was the most terrifying spectacle Linda had ever witnessed. 
Obscure thoughts of torture, of criminals executed by electricity, 
froze her in a set apprehension. 

The hair-dresser stepped over to the dials on the wall, and, 
with a sharp comprehensive glance at his apparatus, moved a 
handle as far as it would go. Nothing immediately happened, 
and Linda gave a relaxing sigh of relief. M. Joseph, however, 
became full of a painful attention. 

He brought into view an unsuspected tube, with a cone of 
paper at its end, and bent over her mother, directing a stream 
of cold air against her head. “How do you feel?” he asked, 
with, Linda noticed, a startling loss of his first accent. Mrs. 
Condon so far felt well enough. Then, before Linda’s startled 
gaze, every single one of the fifteen imprisoning tubes began to 
steam with an extraordinary vigor; not only did they steam, like 
teapots, but drops of water formed and slowly slid over her 
mother’s face. If the process appeared weird at the beginning, 
now it was utterly fantastic. 

The little white vapor spurts played about Mrs. Condon’s 
dripping countenance; they increased rather than diminished; 
actually it resembled a wrecked locomotive she had once seen. 

i55 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


“How are you?” M. Joseph demanded nervously. “Is it hot 
anywhere?” With a sudden gesture she replied in a shaking 
voice, “Here.” 

Instantly he was holding the paper cone with its cold air 
against her scalp, and the heat was subdued. He glanced 
nervously at his watch, and Mrs. Condon managed to ask, 
“How long?” 

“Twenty minutes.” 

Dangerous as the whole proceeding seemed, nothing really 
happened, and Linda’s fears gradually faded into a mere curi¬ 
osity and interest. A curtain hung across the door to the rest of 
the establishment, but it had been brushed partly aside; and she 
could see, in the compartment they had vacated, another man 
bending with waving irons over the liberated mass of a woman’s 
hair. He was very much like M. Joseph, but he was younger 
and had only a dark scrap of mustache. As he caught up the 
hair with a quick double twist he leaned very close to the 
woman’s face, whispering with an expression that never changed, 
an expression like that of the wax heads in the show-case. He 
bent so low that Linda was certain their cheeks had touched. 
She pondered at length over this, gazing now at the man beyond 
and now at M. Joseph flitting with the cold-air tube about her 
mother; wondering if, when she grew older, she would like a 
hair-dresser's cheek against hers. Linda decided not. The idea 
didn't shock her, the woman in the other space plainly liked it; 
still she decided she wouldn’t. A different kind of man, she told 
herself, would be nicer. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, unpleasant odor— 
the odor of scorched hair; and she was absolutely rigid with 
horror at an agonized'cry from her mother. 

“It’s burning me terribly,” the latter cried. “Oh, I can’t 
stand it. Stopl Stop!” 

M. Joseph, as white as plaster, rushed to the wall and 
reversed the handle, and Mrs. Condon started from the chair, 

156 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


her face now streaming with actual tears; but before she could 
escape the man threw himself on her shoulders. 

“You mustn’t move,” he whispered desperately, “you’ll tear 
your hair out. I tell you no harm’s been done. Everything is 
all right. Please please don't cry like that. It will ruin my 
business. There are others in the establishment. Stop!” he 
shook her viciously. 

Linda had risen, terrorized; and Mrs. Condon, with waving 
plucking hands, was sobbing an appeal to be released. “My 
head, my head,” she repeated. “I assure you”—the man 
motioned to a pallid girl to hold her in the chair. With a towel 
to protect his hand he undid a screw, lifted off the cap and 
untwisted the cotton from a bound lock of hair; releasing it, in 
turn, from the spindle it fell forward in a complete corkscrew 
over Mrs. Condon’s face. 

“Do you see!” he demanded. “Perfect. I give you my word 
they’ll all be like that. The cursed heat ran up on me,” he 
added in a swift aside to his assistant. “Has Mrs. Bellows 
gone? Who’s still in the place? Here, loose that binding . . . 
thank God, that one is all right, too.” 

Together they unfastened most of the connections, and a 
growing fringe of long remarkable curls marked Mrs. Condon’s 
pain-drawn and dabbled face. Linda sobbed uncontrollably; 
but perhaps, after all, nothing frightful had happened. Her 
poor mother! Then fear again tightened about her heart at the 
perturbed expression that overtook the hair-dresser. He was 
trying in vain to remove one of the caps. She caught enigmatic 
words—“the borax; crystallized . . . solid. It would take a 
plumber . . . have to go.” 

The connection was immovable. Even in her suffering Mrs. 
Condon implored M. Joseph to save her hair. Nothing, how¬ 
ever, could be done; he admitted it with pale lips. The thing 
might be chiseled off; in the end he tried to force a release and 
the strand, with a renewal of Mrs. Condon’s agony—now, in the 

157 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


interest of her appearance, heroically withstood—snapped short 
in the container. 

Rapidly recovering her vigor, she launched on a tirade against 
M. Joseph and his permanent waving establishment—Linda had 
never before heard her mother talk in such a loud brutal man¬ 
ner, nor use such heated unpleasant words, and the girl was 
flooded with a wretched shame. Still another lock, it was 
revealed, had been ruined, and crumbled to mere dust in its 
owner’s fingers. 

“The law will provide for you,” she promised. 

“Your hair was dyed,” the proprietor returned vindictively. 
“The girl who washed it will testify. Every one is warned 
against the permanent if their hair has been colored. So it was 
at your own risk.” 

“My head’s never been touched with dye,” Mrs. Condon 
shrilly answered. “You lying little ape. And well does that 
young woman know it. She complimented me herself on a true 
blonde.” The girl had, too, right before Linda. 

“You ought to be thrashed out of the city.” 

“Your money will be given back to you,” M. Joseph told her. 

Outside they found a taxi, and sped back to their hotel. 
Above, Mrs. Condon removed her hat; and, before the uncom¬ 
promising mirror, studied her wrecked hair—a frizzled vacancy 
was directly over her left brow—and haggard face. When she 
finally turned to Linda, her manner, her words, were solemn. 

“I’m middle-aged,” she said. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a theme on one of the following topics, maintaining strict 
unity in point of view by giving only what you saw or felt: 

When I Went with My Sister to Have Her Tooth Pulled 

I Kept Watch While Billie Stole the Apples 

I Stood on the Chair While Harry Killed the Mouse 

I Held the Lantern While Father Hitched the Horse. 

T58 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


RALEIGHS FIRST MEETING WITH ELIZABETH* 

Sir Walter Scott 

The young cavalier we have so often mentioned had prob¬ 
ably never yet approached so near the person of his Sovereign 
and he pressed forward as far as the line of warders permitted, 
in order to avail himself of the present opportunity. His com¬ 
panion, on the contrary, cursing his imprudence, kept pulling 
him backwards, till Walter shook him off impatiently, and 
letting his rich cloak drop carelessly from one shoulder; a 
natural action, which served, however, to display to the best 
advantage his well-proportioned person. Unbonneting at the 
same time, he fixed his eager gaze on the Queen’s approach, 
with a mixture of respectful curiosity, and modest yet ardent 
admiration, which suited so well with his fine features, that the 
warders, struck with his rich attire and noble countenance, 
suffered him to approach the ground over which the Queen 
was to pass, somewhat closer than was permitted to ordinary 
spectators. Thus the adventurous youth stood full in Eliza¬ 
beth’s eye—an eye never indifferent to the admiration which 
she deservedly excited among her subjects, or to the fair pro^ 
portions of external form which chanced to distinguish any of 
her courtiers. Accordingly, she fixed her keen glance on the 
youth, as she approached the place where he stood, with a look 
in which surprise at his boldness seemed to be unmingled with 
resentment, while a trifling accident happened which attracted 
her attention towards him yet more strongly. The night had 
been rainy, and just where the young gentleman stood, a small 
quantity of mud interrupted the Queen’s passage. As she 
hesitated to pass on, the gallant, throwing his cloak from his 
shoulder, laid it on the miry spot, so as to ensure her stepping 
over it dry-shod. Elizabeth looked at the young man, who 

* Kenilworth, Chapter XV. 


159 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


accompanied this act of devoted courtesy with a profound rev¬ 
erence and a blush that overspread his whole countenance. The 
Queen was confused, and blushed in her turn, nodded her head, 
hastily passed on, and embarked in her barge without saying 
a word. 

“Come along, Sir Coxcomb,” said Blount; “your gay cloak 
will need the brush to-day, I wot. Nay, if you had meant to 
make a foot-cloth of your mantle, better have kept Tracy’s old 
drap-de-bure, which despises all colors.” 

“This cloak,” said the youth, taking it up and folding it, 
“shall never be brushed while in my possession.” 

“And that will not be long, if you learn not a little more 
economy—we shall have you in cuerpo soon, as the Spaniard 
says.” 

Their discourse was here interrupted by one of the Band 
of Pensioners. 

“I was sent,” said he, after looking at them attentively, 
“to a gentleman who hath no cloak, or a muddy one.—You, sir, 
I think,” addressing the younger cavalier, “are the man; you 
will please to follow me.” 

“He is in attendance on me,” said Blount, “on me, the 
noble Earl of Sussex’s master of horse.” 

“I have nothing to say to that,” answered the messenger; 
“my orders are directly from her Majesty, and concern this 
gentleman only.” 

So saying, he walked away, followed by Walter, leaving 
the others behind, Blount’s eyes almost starting from his 
head with the excess of his astonishment. At length he 
gave vent to it in an exclamation—“Who the good jere would 
have thought this!” And shaking his head with a mysterious 
air, he walked to his own boat, embarked, and returned to 
Deptford. 

The young cavalier was, in the meanwhile, guided to the 

160 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


water-side by the Pensioner, who shewed him considerable re¬ 
spect; a circumstance which, to persons in his situation, may 
be considered as an augury of no small consequence. 
He ushered him into one of the wherries which lay ready 
to attend the Queen’s barge, which was already proceeding 
up the river, with the advantage of that flood-tide, of which, 
in the course of their descent, Blount had complained to his 
associates. 

The two rowers used their oars with such expedition at 
the signal of the Gentleman Pensioner, that they very soon 
brought their little skiff under the stern of the Queen’s boat, 
where she sate beneath an awning, attended by two or three 
ladies, and the nobles of her household. She looked more 
than once at the wherry in which the young adventurer was 
seated, spoke to those around her, and seemed to laugh. At 
length one of the attendants, by the Queen’s order apparently, 
made a sign for the wherry to come alongside, and the young 
man was desired to step from his own skiff into the Queen’s 
barge, which he performed with graceful agility at the fore part 
of the boat, and was brought aft to the Queen’s presence, 
the wherry at the same time dropping into the rear. The 

youth underwent the gaze of Majesty, not the less grace¬ 

fully that his self-possession was mingled with embarrass¬ 
ment. The muddied cloak still hung upon his arm, and 
formed the natural topic with which the Queen introduced the 
conversation. 

“You have this day spoiled a gay mantle in our service, 

young man. We thank you for your service, though the 

manner of offering it was unusual, and something bold.” 

“In a sovereign’s need,” answered the youth, “it is each 
liegeman’s duty to be bold.” 

“God’s pity! that was well said, my lord,” said the 
Queen, turning to a grave person who sate by her, and an- 

161 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


swered with a grave inclination of the head, and something 
of a mumbled assent. “Well, young man, your gallantry shall 
not go unrewarded. Go to the wardrobe keeper, and he shall 
have orders to supply the suit which you have cast away in 
our service. Thou shalt have a suit, and that of the newest cut, 
I promise thee, on the word of a princess.” 

“May it please your grace,” said Walter, hesitating, “it is 
not for so humble a servant of your Majesty to measure out 
your bounties; but if it became me to choose-” 

“Thou wouldst have gold, I warrant me,” said the Queen, 
interrupting him; “fie, young man! I take shame to say, that, 
in our capital, such and so various are the means of thrift¬ 
less folly, that to give gold to youth is giving fuel to fire, and 
furnishing them with the means of self-destruction. If I live 
and reign, these means of unchristian excess shall be abridged. 
Yet thou mayst be poor,” she added, “or thy parents may be— 
It shall be gold, if thou wilt, but thou shalt answer to me for 
the use on’t.” 

Walter waited patiently until the Queen had done, and 
then modestly assured her, that gold was still less in his wish 
than the raiment her Majesty had before offered. 

“How, boy!” said the Queen, “neither gold nor garment? 
What is it thou wouldst have of me then?” 

“Only permission, madam—if it is not asking too high an 
honor—permission to wear the cloak which did you this trifling 
service.” 

“Permission to wear thine own cloak, thou silly boy!” said 
the Queen. 

“It is no longer mine,” said Walter; “when your Majesty’s 
foot touched it, it became a fit mantle for a prince, but far too 
rich a one for its former owner.” 

The Queen again blushed; and endeavored to cover, by 
laughing, a slight degree of not unpleasing surprise and con¬ 
fusion. 

162 



INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


ASSIGNMENT 

Write a short theme on one of these topics: 

The Most Graceful Act of Courtesy I Ever Saw 

An Act of True Politeness 

When I Forgot My Manners 

How the Burglar Showed His Good Will 

A Piece of Unexpected Gallantry 

How Gertrude Made the Rude Person Friendly. 

COLERIDGE IN THE ARMY * 

Joseph Cottle 

Mr. Coleridge now told us of one of his Cambridge ec¬ 
centricities which highly amused us. He said that he had 
paid his addresses to a Mary Evans, who rejecting his offer, 
he took it so much in dudgeon, that he withdrew from the Uni¬ 
versity to London, when, in a reckless state of mind, he enlisted 
in the 15th, Elliot’s Light Dragoons. No objection having been 
taken to his height or age, he was asked his name. He had 
previously determined to give one that was thoroughly Kam- 
schatkian, but having noticed that morning over a door in 
Lincoln’s Inn Fields (or the Temple,) the name of “Cumber- 
batch,” (not Comberback,) he thought this word sufficiently 
outlandish, and replied “Silas Tomken Cumberbatch,”f and 
such was the entry in the regimental book. 

Here, in his new capacity, laborious duties devolved on 
Mr. C. He endeavored to think on Caesar, and Epaminondas, 
and Leonidas, with other ancient heroes, and composed himself 
to his fate; remembering, in every series, there must be a com¬ 
mencement: but still he found confronting him no imaginary 
inconveniences. Perhaps he who had most cause for dissatis- 

* Reminiscences, pages 209-214. 

t These three initials would be the proper S. T. C. affixed to his garments. 
(Cottle’s note.) 

‘ 163 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


faction, was the drill sergeant, who thought his professional 
character endangered; for after using his utmost efforts to 
bring his raw recruit into something like training, he ex¬ 
pressed the most serious fears, from his unconquerable awk¬ 
wardness, that he never should be able to make a soldier of 
him! 

Mr. C. it seemed, could not even rub down his own horse, 
which, however, it should be known, was rather a restive one, 
who, like Cowper’s hare, “would bite if he could,” and in addi¬ 
tion kick not a little. We could not suppose that these pre¬ 
dispositions in the martial steed were at all aggravated by the 
unskilful jockeyship to which he was subjected, but the sensitive 
quadruped did rebel a little in the stable, and wince a little 
in the field! Perhaps the poor animal was something in the 
state of the horse that carried Mr. Wordsworth’s “Idiot Boy,” 
who, in his sage contemplations, “wondered”—“What he had 
got upon his back!” This rubbing down his horse was a con¬ 
stant' source of annoyance to Mr. C., who thought that the 
most rational way was,—to let the horse rub himself down, 
shaking himself clean, and so to shine in all his native beauty; 
but on this subject there were two opinions, and his that was to 
decide carried most weight. If it had not been for the foolish 
and fastidious taste of the ultra precise sergeant, this whole mass 
of trouble might be avoided, but seeing the thing must be done, 
or punishment! he set about the herculean task with the firm¬ 
ness of a Wallenstein; but lo! the paroxysm was brief, in the 
necessity that called it forth. Mr. C. overcame this immense 
difficulty, by bribing a young man of the regiment to per¬ 
form the achievement for him; and that on very easy terms; 
namely, by writing for him some “Love Stanzas,” to send to his 
sweetheart! Mr. Coleridge, in the midst of all his deficiencies, 
it appeared, was liked by the men, although he was the butt of 
the whole company; being esteemed by them as next of kin 

164 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


to a natural*, though of a peculiar kind—a talking natural. 
This fancy of theirs was stoutly resisted by the love-sick swain, 
but the regimental logic prevailed; for, whatever they could do, 
with dexterity, he could not do at all, ergo, must he not be a 
natural? There was no man in the regiment who met with 
so many falls from his horse, as Silas Tomken Cumberbatch! 
He often calculated with so little precision his due equilibrium, 
that, in mounting on one side, (perhaps the wrong stirrup,) the 
probability was, especially if his horse moved a little, that he 
lost his balance, and if he did not roll back on this side, came 
down ponderously on the other! when the laugh spread amongst 
the men, “Silas is off again!” Mr. C. had often heard of cam¬ 
paigns, but he never before had so correct an idea of hard 
service. 

Some mitigation was now in store for Mr. C. arising out 
of a whimsical circumstance. He had been placed as a sentinel, 
at the door of a ball-room, or some public place of resort, when 
two of his officers, passing in, stopped for a moment, near Mr. 
C., talking about Euripides, two lines from whom, one of them 
repeated. At the sound of Greek, the sentinel instinctively 
turned his ear, when he said, with all deference, touching his 
lofty cap, “I hope your honor will excuse me, but the lines you 
have repeated are not quite accurately cited. These are the 
lines,” when he gave them in their more correct form. “Besides,” 
said Mr. C., “instead of being in Euripides, the lines will be 
found in the second antistrophe of the ‘vEdipus of Sophocles.’ ” 
“Why, man, who are you?” said the officer, “old Faustus 
ground young again?” “I am your honor’s humble sentinel,” 
said Mr. C., again touching his cap. 

The officers hastened into the room, and inquired of one 
and another, about that “odd fish,” at the door; when one of 
the mess (it is believed the surgeon) told them, that he had 

* Fool. An old meaning of the word. Cf. “natural born fool.” 

165 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


his eye upon him, but he would neither tell where he came 
from, nor anything about his family of the Cumberbatches; 
“but,” continued he, “instead of his being an ‘odd fish,’ I 
suspect he must be a ‘stray bird’ from the Oxford or Cam¬ 
bridge aviary.” They learned also, the laughable fact, that he 
was bruised all over, by frequent falls from his horse. “Ah,” 
said one of the officers, “we have had, at different times, two or 
three of these ‘University birds’ in our regiment.” This sus¬ 
picion was confirmed by one of the officers, Mr. Nathaniel Ogle, 
who observed that he had noticed a line of Latin, chalked 
under one of the men’s saddles, and was told, on inquiring whose 
saddle it was, that is was “Cumberbatch’s.” 

The officers now kindly took pity on the “poor scholar,” 
and had Mr. C. removed to the medical department, where he 
was appointed assistant in the regimental hospital. This change 
was a vast improvement in Mr. C.’s condition; and happy was 
the day, also, on which it took place, for the sake of the sick 
patients; for, Silas Tomken Cumberbatch’s amusing stories, they 
said, did them more good than all the doctor’s physic! Many 
ludicrous dialogues sometimes occurred between Mr. C. and his 
new disciples; particularly with one who was “the geographer.” 
The following are some of these dialogues. 


On one occasion he told them of the Peloponnesian war, 
which lasted twenty-seven years. “There must have been 
famous promotions there,” said one poor fellow, haggard as a 
death’s head. Another, tottering with disease, ejaculated, “Can 
you tell, Silas, how many rose from the ranks?” 

He now still more excited their wonderment, by recapitu¬ 
lating the feats of Archimedes. As the narrative proceeded, 
one restrained his scepticism, till he was almost ready to burst, 
and then vociferated, “Silas, that’s a lie!” “D’ye think so?” 
said Mr. C. smiling, and went on with his story. The idea, 

166 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


however, got amongst them, that Silas’s fancy was on the 
stretch, when Mr. C. finding that this tack would not do, 
changed his subject, and told them of a famous general, called 
Alexander the Great. As by a magic spell, the flagging atten¬ 
tion was revived, and several, at the same moment, to testify 
their eagerness, called out, “The general! The general!” “I’ll 
tell you all about him,” said Mr. C. when impatience marked 
every countenance. He then told them whose son this Alex¬ 
ander the Great was; no less than Philip of Macedon. “I 
never heard of him,” said one. “I think I have,” said the 
“geographer,” ashamed of being thought ignorant, “Silas, wasn’t 
he a Cornish man? I knew one of the Alexanders at Truro!” 

Mr. C. now went on describing to them, in glowing colors, 
the valor, and the wars, and the conquests of this famous gen¬ 
eral. “Ah,” said one man, whose open mouth had complimented 
the speaker, for the preceding half hour; “Ah,” said he, “Silas, 
this Alexander must have been as great a man as our Colonel!” 

Mr. C. now told them of the “Retreat of the Ten Thou¬ 
sand.” “I don’t like to hear of retreat,” said one. “Nor I,” 
said a second: “I’m for marching on.” Mr. C. now told of the 
incessant conflicts of these brave warriors, and of the virtues 
of the “square.” “They were a parcel of crack men,” said one. 
“Yes,” said another, “their bayonets fixed, and sleeping on 
their arms day and night.” “I should like to know,” said a 
fourth, “what rations were given with all that hard fighting”; 
on which an Irishman replied, “to be sure, every time the sun 
rose, two pounds of good ox beef, and plenty of whiskey.” 

At another time he told them of the invasion of Xerxes, 
and his crossing the wide Hellespont. “Ah,” said a young re¬ 
cruit, (a native of an obscure village in Kent, who had ac¬ 
quired a decent smattering of geography,—knowing well that 
the world was round, and that the earth was divided into land 
and water, and, furthermore, that there were more countries on 
the globe than England, and who now wished to raise his pre- 

167 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


tensions a little before his comrades;) said this young man of 
Kent: “Silas, I know where that ‘Hellespont’ is. I think it 
must be at the mouth of the Thames, for ’tis very wide.” 

Mr. C. now told them of the heroes of Thermopylae, when 
the geographer interrupted him, by saying, “Silas, I think I 
know, too, where that ‘Thermopple’ is; is n’t it somewhere up 
in the north?” “You are quite right, Jack,” said Mr. C. “it is 
to the north of the Line.” A conscious elevation marked his 
countenance, and he rose at once, five degrees in the estimation 
of his friends. 

In one of these interesting conversaziones, when Mr. C. was 
sitting at the foot of a bed, surrounded by his gaping comrades, 
who were always solicitous of, and never wearied with, his 
stories, the door suddenly burst open, and in came two or three 
gentlemen, (his friends,) looking some time, in vain, amid the 
uniform dresses, for their man. At length, they pitched on Mr. 
C., and taking him by the arm, led him, in silence, out of the 
room, (a picture indeed, for a Wilkie!) As the supposed 
deserter passed the threshold, one of the astonished auditors 
uttered, with a sigh, “Poor Silas! I wish they may let him 
off with a cool five hundred!” Mr. C.’s ransom was soon joy¬ 
fully adjusted by his friends, and now the wide world once 
more lay before him. 


ASSIGNMENT 

Write a theme on one of these topics: 

In the Wrong Pew 
A Social Misfit 

A Square Peg in a Round Hole 

An Eagle among Sparrows 

His Lordship among the Lumbermen (Cowboys) 

Genevieve’s Class in the Slums 

A Solomon in the Steerage 

Experiences in Advertising 

My Summer as a Book Agent 

168 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


The Most Embarrassing Situation I Was Ever In 

When I Thought I Was in Love. 

THE DARK-HUED IMAGE OF GOOD HOPE * 

Blair Niles 

It is well for students to acquaint themselves with the structure 
of formal short stories, such as most of the selections in the group 
of Beginnings and Endings (pages 118-143). But the average stu¬ 
dent will find more frequent use for a mastery of the art of narrat¬ 
ing simple incidents or experiences, like most of the preceding selec¬ 
tions in the present group, popular legends, like this selection, and 
informal stories in which there is more of matter than formal art, 
like the next selection. Note that the legend we are now to study 
is, though so simple as to appear artless, yet encased in setting both 
appropriate and impressive. 

I made the padre tell me the story of that dark-hued Senor 
de la Buena Esperanza. He told it in whispers as we stood 
before the image, while all about us the murmured protesta¬ 
tions of faith were reiterated as bead after bead was slipped 
along the rosaries. 

The image, the padre said, was an effigy very prodigious, 
the oldest in Ecuador, so old that there are no documents to 
confirm its history. There is only tradition. Upon a certain 
day, ever so long ago, there had been seen to traverse the streets 
of Quito a mule. The mule carried on its back a great box. 
The animal proceeded alone, with no master to direct it. Of 
its own volition it had stopped at the door of the Convent of 
San Agustin, where it fell exhausted. When the monks re¬ 
moved the burden from the back of the poor beast, it had risen 
and walked away. It had never been seen after that. The box 
had contained the holy image that later came to be known as 
the Senor of Good Hope. 

* From “The Clanging Bells of Quito,” in the Century Magazine, April 1923. 
Reprinted by permission of the Century Co. 

169 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


From the very beginning it had been evident that this was 
a most miraculous image. In great numbers the afflicted sought 
from it comfort. Very many were the miracles wrought, and 
the grateful had clothed the image magnificently and incased 
its feet in golden sandals. 

Then came a certain man whose name ■ tradition has not 
preserved, though it is known that he was the father of a family, 
that he was a Christian and a man very simple. Full of trouble, 
he came to the Senor of Good Hope, for he found himself with¬ 
out means to feed his children or to pay his debts. So long 
he remained in the temple in devout supplication that at last 
the sacristan was obliged to tell him that it was already past 
the time for closing the doors. 

At the following dawn the patrol, passing the home of the 
unfortunate man, saw lying at the entrance a corpse that he 
recognized as that of a noble lady of Quito. A little later 
the man of the house was seen hurrying in the direction of the 
sanctuary. At that hour the place was empty, and the wretched 
one, without thought of observation, prostrated himself before 
the altar. When he finally raised his eyes, full of faith, the 
image stretched forth its foot and let fall one of its golden 
sandals directly in the hands of the supplicant. 

Full of gratitude, amazement, and joy, this man hurried 
to the nearest jeweler with the idea of converting the sandal into 
money. Whereupon, the sandal being very famous in Quito, he 
was instantly arrested as a thief. The population, infuriated 
by this profanation of that sanctuary, which was as the child 
of its eyes, demanded swift and tremendous punishment. No 
one credited the culprit’s defense. He was not only a thief, 
they declared, but an assassin. Had there not been a corpse 
found at his very door? And was there not blood on his 
clothing? 

“Blind in my trouble,” the poor man replied, “I did indeed, 
as I went out, stumble over a body that I believed only that 

I/O 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


of a drunkard, and thus did my clothes become blood-stained.” 
But none believed. 

At last the day of his execution arrived. In the garb of 
the condemned, bound hand and foot, the miserable one begged 
as a last favor to be allowed to bid good-by to the Sehor de la 
Buena Esperanza. There, throwing himself at the feet of the 
image, he cried aloud: 

“Senor, your words and your gifts do only harm to those 
who have faith in^you. Sehor, return to me my honor and save 
me from death!” 

Then in the presence of the executioners and the rabble, 
the image let fall into the hands of the condemned the re¬ 
maining sandal of gold. 

“ Milagro! Milagro!” went up from hundreds of voices, 

<e Milagro! El condenado es inocente! Milagro!” 

Such was the tradition that was told to me by the padre 
while before the altar the candles burned and murmured prayers 
begged salvation and pardon. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write as simply as you can a theme on one of these topics: 

A Story from Bygone Days 
An Old Folk Tale 
A Legend of the Countryside 
An Indian Legend 
Legends in Our Family 
Legends about Our Neighborhood 
Legend of the Dark Wood 
Lovers’ Leap 
Peculiar Superstitions 
My Grandmother’s Story 
The Old Daguerreotype 
A Faded Lace Handkerchief 
A Fairy Tale (write an original one) 

My Favorite Fairy Story (retell the story) 

My Favorite Old English Ballad (retell the story). 

171 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


THE SCULPTOR’S MODEL * 

S. Weir Mitchell 

This narrative deals simply with fundamental human qualities. 
It makes no effort to exploit emotion; it holds the pathos in solution 
rather than daubs it on as a separate element. 

“It was in Florence,” he said, “years ago. The sculptor 

N-, at present a man of world-wide fame, was just rising into 

notice. He was desperately poor, proud as only an impoverished 
noble can be, and as handsome as one of my young Greeks. 
His absorption in his art was something past belief. He lived 
in it, and for it, and neither man nor woman seemed to attract 
him save in their relation to his work. I remember once, after 
an evening at the theater, being amused to discover that he 
did not know what opera had been sung, his attention having 
been entirely captured by the lines of the neck of a woman in a 
box near by. 

“To cut a long story short, the young widow of an old 
Neapolitan prince fell madly in love with him, and, to my 
surprise, I learned that he was to marry her. He was rather 
cool about it when I congratulated him, and so the affair ran on 
for months, the woman evidently much the more interested of 
the two. 

“One night, at an open-air concert, he was talking to me 
excitedly of his new statue—a vestal virgin, a partly draped 
figure. I had seen his sketches, and anticipated a triumph of 
original work in its completion. Certainly the idea was novel. 
The vestal was asleep in her chair beside the dying altar-fire 
she had been set to guard. A tender smile, perhaps the dream- 
gift of forbidden love, was on her face—a charming concep¬ 
tion. He told me he had had several models, but that all 
lacked the dignity and refinement of a Roman patrician. He 

* Characteristics, Chapter VI. Reprinted by permission of the Century Co. 

172 



UN formal composition 


foresaw failure, and wailed in an outspoken Italian way. What 
was the world to him! What was anything, with his fate 
before him, to know he might realize his vision of chastity and 
loveliness, and to find it eluding him? There were models in 
Rome, but he had no means to seek or bring them. I offered 
help as delicately as I could, and he resented it almost as an 
insult. 

“ ‘Do you suppose,’ said he, ‘the Princess N- would not 

help me if I asked her? I would die first! Money! I wish she 
had none.’ 

“‘Hush!’ I said; ‘some one will overhear you. You have 
so much in life—your art, your growing fame, a noble woman, 
love, youth.’ 

“‘And what are these?’ he cried, bitterly. ‘What is any¬ 
thing to me? What is youth or fame? What is she compared 
to my art? Do you suppose any woman’s love can compensate 
me for what I am losing? These dreams must be born into 
marble or they become as wind-torn mists, and fade away. I 
have had this bitterness before, and love! you talk to me of 
love!’ 

“ ‘Nonsense,’ I said; ‘you cannot love as a man should love— 
as that woman is worthy to be loved.’ 

“He started up. 

“ ‘Love her as I love my art? Not I. The mortal before 
the enduring? Not I.’ 

“He was too passionately moved to hear the quick rustle of 
garments behind us. But, turning my head, I saw, or thought 
I saw, the Princess retreating swiftly. A week later I met him 
radiant and joyous. As he took a seat beside me at a cafe, he 
cried: 

“‘I have it! The clay is nearly done. Count R- has 

bought it, and I am to put it into marble at once.’ 

“ ‘And the model?’ I said. 

“ ‘Ah, thereby hangs a tale, as you English say. The day 

i73 




CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


after I saw you the Princess left Florence. She returns next 
week. It is strange how she disturbs my use of the power 
which I know is in me. I felt free once more. You will think 
that horrible; it is true. Well, the day I bade her good-by I 
found a peasant woman waiting in my studio. She was, to 
my amusement, masked, and carried a little slate, like Ursula, 
the dumb model in Rome. On the slate was written: “I am a 
model. My brothers insist that my face shall not be seen. I 
can come daily for a week.” I said: .‘‘Well, here is the statue 
in the rough. Go back of the curtain; take this veil stuff; 
arrange yourself; and we will see.” Presently she came in, 
still masked, and took instantly the pose of my vestal. I was 
struck as dumb as she. An arm and shoulder are bare; the 
left arm, gathering the drapery, lies across the waist; the limbs 
are partly draped; the feet are in little sandals I had had made. 
Anything more gracious, more virginal, man never saw. I 
asked no questions, but went on as if I were inspired. No 
model I can recall so caught the spirit of the thing. If the 
ghost of some patrician girl of Rome’s noblest had come to help 
me, it could not have been more wonderful. It was not a 
model; it was a vestal. The seventh day she did not appear, 
and that is the queerest of all, because I had agreed to pay her 
then, and her terms were unusually moderate. However, it is 
done, or nearly done; I can do without her—but-’ 

“ ‘But what?’ 

“ ‘Oh, I should have liked to have seen her again. That is 
all.’ 

“ ‘And,’ I said, ‘when does Princess N-return?’ 

“ ‘To-morrow. I shall be glad to see her. My mind is at 
ease now; and how much it will please her!’ 

“We met again in three days. He was wild with anger. 

“‘She is gone!’ he said. ‘Come and gone. Gone to Con¬ 
stantinople, they said, and thence to the East. Not a word, 
not a note. I had written to her at Naples, but had no reply. 

i74 




INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


Yesterday I called, and was told she was not at home; and to¬ 
day, that she left last night.’ 

“I said that it did seem strange to me, and that some¬ 
thing certainly would explain it in a few days; but nothing 
did.” 

ASSIGNMENT 


Write as simply as you can a narrative on one of these topics: 

The Woman Who Effaced Herself 
The Man Who Did n’t See 
Who Was It? 

A Friend in Need 

The Unknown Benefactor 

Why Ruth Did n’t Win the Medal. 


APPLAUSE IN THE THEATRE * 

George Arliss 

Hitherto our examples of informal composition have been nar¬ 
rative. But most argument and most exposition are informal also, 
and it is well that they should be. The two remaining selections 
illustrate informality in these fields. 

On the program of one or more of the New York theatres 
there are printed words to this effect: “Desiring to preserve the 
mood of the play, we ask you not to applaud during the course 
of the action. There will be no curtain calls until the end.” 

I believe I have a full appreciation of the artistic tempera¬ 
ment that prompted this appeal, but I cannot say that I am 
altogether in sympathy with an effort to educate the public to 
restrain its emotions in the theatre. Is it not possible that we 
of the theatre are beginning to take ourselves too seriously? 
The art of the theatre cannot be too seriously approached, but 
I doubt whether we are gaining anything by trying to make the 
audience behave as though they were not in a theatre at all. 

* New York Times, February 18, 1923. Reprinted by permission. 

175 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


I will confess that I have always considered there is something 
supremely simple and primitive in curtain calls—actors standing 
in a row and bowing and smiling their thanks to an audience 
for its generous support. But, after all, isn’t that a part of the 
theatre? Don’t we all have to shed our shell of sophistication 
when we go to a theatrical entertainment? And isn’t that 
mainly why we go? An audience likes to applaud; it likes 
to see the actors bow and smile. I am going to have an awful 
struggle with myself when I go to one of these theatres and see 
a fine actor work up to a splendid climax and dash off the 
stage, if I am not allowed to give him a round. Cannot the 
public be given credit for sufficient imagination to be able to 
readjust its mind to the story of the play, even though it has ap¬ 
plauded? Do we sufficiently realize how wonderfully keen 
is the imagination of an audience in the theatre? Do they 
really need all these helpful hints to keep them in the mood of 
the play? If, by eliminating curtain calls, we could keep 
the minds of the audience pinned to the story until the rise of 
the curtain on the next act, I might admit the value of this in¬ 
novation. But it only gives them a little longer to drift away. 
We know what happens between the acts. 

As the curtain falls, the one lady probably says to her friend, 
“Isn’t she great!” “She certainly is great!” “Great! The 
last time I saw her I was with Emily.” “Oh, tell me what- 

ever’s become of Emily?” “Why, don’t you know-” &c., 

until the very last minute before the curtain rises. Failing a 
companion to talk to, one reads “What the Men Are Wearing” 
(supplied by a considerate management especially that one may 
improve the shining moments between the acts). Or one gazes 
rapturously at the picture of that charming but unblushing lady 
who always figures in the program in an extraordinarily well¬ 
fitting corset. But, in spite of this, is not the audience men¬ 
tally alert enough to come back to the play immediately the 
curtain rises on the next act and take up just where it left off? 

176 



INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


Whatever else we put into the theatre, don’t let us take out 
the holiday spirit entirely. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write an informal argument on one of these topics: 

Commencement Regalia 

Evening Dress 

A Custom That Should Be Banished 

A Pernicious Practice 

The Wrong Way We Have of Doing Something. 

SHOP TALK* 

Max McConn 

Jones and I have backed away together into the corner beside 
the baby grand. We have forgotten the discomfort that nearly 
every American male feels in his evening clothes. We are no 
longer afraid we may drop our coffee cups. We are talking 
earnestly, keenly—fairly going it. A blessed respite from labo¬ 
rious pumping for thin rivulets of banal phrase about the 
weather, the music, the decorations! Our dialogue flows fluent 
and swift—good dialogue, humorous, original, pregnant. For 
Jones and I both sell tires, and we are deep in the latest aspects 
of that fascinating branch of merchandising. 

“Oh, oh!” cries our hostess, “you are talking shop! Naughty, 
naughty!” Of course, she smiles and te-hees as she says it. 
But that is merely the hypocritical social sugar-coating for the 
solid pill of admonition which she thoroughly means we shall 
swallow instantly. 

She is gone, but Jones and I—poor spineless creatures that 
we are—slip shamefaced out of our refuge, resume our stations 
at the pump, again balance fearfully with precarious china. 

Would I could have found the wit and courage to explain to 

* The Nation, March i, 1922. Reprinted by permission. 

177 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


that fair, censorious dame that our talk—Jones’s and mine— 
was the best talk going at that particular moment in her draw¬ 
ing-room! How else did she spot us but by the fact that we 
were the only two persons present who were really absorbed—not 
glancing over each other’s shoulders in a common quest of their 
get-away? I swear that the next time—but why be forsworn? 
American manhood jiay be quick to resist political tyranny or 
economic oppression: before the social dictates of the matri- 
archate which really rules the land it can only cringe and obey. 

But on paper at least I can be bold, and I enter herewith my 
remonstrance and protest against the . American feminine taboo 
on shop talk. I hereby assert that shop talk is the best talk 
in the world, for the simple reason that it means a man talking 
about the thing he really knows and is really interested in, 
and that if we would give it free rein, instead of continually 
checking it, at least two-thirds of the boredom that hangs like 
a pall over our teas and receptions and visitings would vanish 
away. 

Of course, I know that our hostesses—dear Carol Kennicotts 
that they are—sigh for the stimulating conversation of Bohemia. 
But why is the conversation of Bohemia stimulating? Pre¬ 
cisely because it is shop talk, pure and simple, brazen and un¬ 
abashed and continuous. Only the talkers happen to manufac¬ 
ture free verse and statuettes instead of footwear or motor cars. 
Is there any real difference in shoppiness between a minor 
novelist thumping a table in a cafe over the realism of Theodore 
Dreiser and your own poor husband over there in the corner 
emphasizing with his forefinger the merits or demerits of 
some particular brand of the commodity he purveys? 

“Ah yes,” the Carols may reply, “but free verse and statuettes 
and realism are interesting, whereas your automobiles and hard¬ 
ware and footwear-” 

True, ladies! I hasten to admit it. The writers and artists 
have the best of it every way, in their work as well as in their 

178 



INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


talk. But is that any reason why you should not permit, nay, 
encourage, the rest of us to make the best of that dull portion 
which is ours? For it is not as if by steering us off tires you 
could forthwith have us eloquent on art and literature. It is 
tires or nothing for us, poor follows. 

And, let me add, we may not really be so entirely uninter¬ 
esting as you assume. After all there are two sides to this 
matter of interest. Perhaps, if you would let us talk freely of 
our employments and listen with alert, perceiving minds, you 
might discover that we touched phases of many “interesting” 
topics. Jones and I, now, the other night—our text was tires— 
what could be more prosy, more materialistic?—and yet we 
dealt incidentally with economics, on the sides both of produc¬ 
tion and of distribution, and with psychology, and even with art 
and literature in their competent applications to advertising. 
And at any rate we should have been revealing to you, if you 
had hearkened, two entirely genuine if not highly differentiated 
specimens of the genus homo. 

Do you remember when it was that Carol found Doc Kenni- 
cott interesting and lovable? Was it not when she let him dis¬ 
course on surgery? 

I insist, furthermore, on pointing out two obvious points of 
unfairness in the application of this taboo. 

First, it is applied rigorously to the shop of men, but much 
less consistently, if at all, to feminine shop—recipes, patterns, 
babies, in the case of the proletariat and the lower bourgeoisie; 
and among the higher bourgeoisie or economic aristocracy, frocks 
and maids. Will any female have the hardihood to deny that 
such topics circulate freely among the petticoated contingent on 
every sort of occasion? Or to maintain that they are essen¬ 
tially less shoppy or more cultural and elegant than the themes 
which are forbidden to their husbands? 

The second point of unfairness is still more serious. It may 
even be characterized as treacherous. It is that talk about them- 


179 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


selves and their own affairs is freely permitted to men when they 
appear in the capacity of lovers, actual or potential. Whatever 
Corydon makes or sells—were it hog cholera serum or bicycle 
pumps—is then of supreme interest to Phyllida—“for his sake.” 
Poor Corydon is led to believe he has found a maiden who is 
not only beauteous but also—and usually he values this more— 
intelligently and sympathetically alive to the engrossing inter¬ 
est of hog serum or pumps. He is so pathetically grateful, so 
profoundly appreciative, that he eagerly undertakes the life 
support of so delightful a creature—only to learn that in 
reality serum nauseates her and pumps inflate her wrath and 
neither may be mentioned in polite society! Is it not cruel? 
And if she, on her side, finds her husband grown dull, whom 
has she to thank? 

ASSIGNMENT 

Explain your ideas on one of these topics, making the introduction 
as informal as possible: 

Smoking 

A Sunday Pastime 

A Silly Prejudice 

Something I Disbelieve in and Do 

Where Deference Ought to Be Defiance 

What Our Society (Club, Fraternity, Sorority) Ought to Stand 
For 

What Sportsmanship Is 

Some Examples of Bunk 

The Pleasures of Browsing 

The Lure of Amateur Photography 

A Defence of Day-Dreaming 

Riding a Hobby 

How a Student Can Best Spend His Vacations 
Why College Memory Books Are (Are Not) a Waste of Time 
Why I Shall (Shall Not) Study Hardest in My Freshman Year 
Would I Recognize Lincoln’s Greatness if He Were My Class¬ 
mate? 

One Thing I Would Do if I Could Live My Life Over 
One Thing I Would n’t Do if I Could Live My Life Over. 

180 


INFORMAL COMPOSITION 


ASSIGNMENT FOR THE SECTION AS A WHOLE 

1. Bring to class a standard literary work that seems to you to 
suffer from too great stiltedness. Bring to class a newspaper article 
that seems to you to try too consciously to be “proper.” 

2. Bring to class (a) a standard literary work and (b) a piece 
of writing of more transitory nature that charms you by its 
informality. 


181 


CHARACTERS 


“The proper study of mankind is man.” Whether proper or 
not, the study is natural, inevitable. And absorbing. What 
people say, what they do, what they think, above all what they 
are, will ever be a source of fascination to other people. Man 
was not made to live alone or to let his neighbor withdraw into 
utter seclusion. We pry, we gossip, we explain, we discuss, we 
portray. We make verbal feasts on the temperament and con¬ 
duct of our fellows. Much of the fun of life consists in ob¬ 
serving human beings and in chattering forth the results of our 
observation. 

To create characters who live, breathe, and are rememberable 
is the supreme achievement of literature. It is an infinitely 
higher achievement than to attain mere prettiness in one’s writ¬ 
ing. It is difficult, so difficult that some critics maintain that 
out of all the writing done by Americans fewer than half a 
dozen immortal characters—Poor Richard, Leather-Stocking, 
Huckleberry Finn, Uncle Remus—have emerged. To expect 
memorable portrayal of character by students would therefore 
be foolish. 

Nevertheless we shall all our lives both wish and need to 
portray character constantly. And any of us can attain, though 
not creative excellence, yet skill and sureness in such por¬ 
trayal. Whenever we picture or analyze people orally for rea¬ 
sons of pleasure or for reasons of business, we should do our 
utmost to make those people stand forth “in their habit a& 

182 


CHARACTERS 


they live.” Whenever we write about them, we should strive 
with even greater zeal to capture and reflect both their outward 
appearance and their elusive inward quality. Whether we speak 
or write, we should learn all we can of the methods used by the 
masters, and should adapt these methods, in so far as seems 
wise, to the portrayal of people we have seen and studied for 
ourselves. 

Related to the study of individuals is the study of groups 
or types. You may like or dislike a kind of person as much 
as you like or dislike an individual. You may be as prone 
to talk about the kind. You may instinctively classify an in¬ 
dividual according to kind and approve or condemn him in con¬ 
sequence. Models and assignments relative to kind therefore 
follow in this text the models and assignments relative to in¬ 
dividuals. 

A LONE LORN CREETUR’ * 

Charles Dickens 

Emphasis is here placed upon the externals of personality, upon 
the features or qualities which any of us would see if we were 
observant. To focus attention on idiosyncrasies is one of the surest 
ways of giving impact to our writing; on the other hand, it is often 
misleading or unfair. 

The characterization here is also made vivid by another device— 
the use of conversation. 

I soon found out that Mrs. Gummidge did not always make 
herself so agreeable as she might have been expected to do, 
under the circumstances of her residence with Mr. Peggotty. 
Mrs. Gummidge’s was rather a fretful disposition, and she 
whimpered more sometimes than was comfortable for other 
parties in so small an establishment. I was very sorry for her; 
but there were moments when it would have been more agree- 

* David Copperfield, Chapter III. 

183 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


able, I thought, if Mrs. Gummidge had had a convenient apart¬ 
ment of her own to retire to, and had stopped there until her 
spirits revived. 

Mrs. Gummidge had been in a low state all day, and had 
burst into tears in the afternoon, when the fire smoked. “I 
am a lone lorn creetur’,” were Mrs. Gummidge’s words, when 
that unpleasant occurrence took place, “and everythink goes 
contrairy with me.” 

“Oh, it ’ll soon leave off,” said Peggotty—I again mean our 
Peggotty—“and besides, you know, it’s not more disagreeable 
to you than to us.” 

“I feel it more,” said Mrs. Gummidge. 

It was a very cold day, with cutting blasts of wind. Mrs. 
Gummidge’s peculiar corner of the fireside seemed to me to be 
the warmest and snuggest in the place, as her chair was cer¬ 
tainly the easiest, but it did n’t suit her that day at all. She was 
constantly complaining of the cold, and of its occasioning a 
visitation in her back which she called “the creeps.” At last 
she shed tears on that subject, and said again that she was 
“a lone lorn creetur’ and everythink went contrairy with her.” 

“It is certainly very cold,” said Peggotty. “Everybody must 
feel it so.” 

“I feel it more than other people,” said Mrs. Gummidge. 

So at dinner; when Mrs. Gummidge was always helped im¬ 
mediately after me, to whom the preference was given as a 
visitor of distinction. The fish were small and bony, and the 
potatoes were a little burnt. We all acknowledged that we felt 
this something of a disappointment; but Mrs. Gummidge said 
she felt it more than we did, and shed tears again, and made 
that former declaration with great bitterness. 


184 


CHARACTERS 


ASSIGNMENT 

1. In a description or characterization of one of the following 
emphasize some peculiar feature, manner, or trait. If possible, quote 
a typical remark or two or a typical piece of conversation. 

My Uncle 
An Odd Fish 

The Crankiest Person I Know 
A Crack-Brained Chap 
The Homeliest Man 

The Queerest Mannerism I Ever Ran Across 

A Man (Woman) with a Hobby 

The Oddest Character in My Community. 

2 . Characterize the speaker by means of his (her) conversation: 
Grandmother’s Opinion of Flappers 

A New York (Boston, Richmond) Girl’s Opinion of Western 
Women 

Uncle Si’s Comments to the Reporter Who Is Interviewing Him 
Mrs. Skagg’s Views on Sanitation 

Mrs. Merkle Tells of the Clever Sayings of Her Children 
“What Fools Women Are!” 


DANTE * 

Thomas Carlyle 

This selection is an example of external portrayal merging into 
profound interpretation. 

Many volumes have been written by way of commentary on 
Dante and his Book; yet, on the whole, with no great result. 
His Biography is, as it were, irrecoverably lost for us. An 
unimportant, wandering, sorrow-stricken man, not much note 
was taken of him while he lived; and the most of that has 
vanished, in the long space that now intervenes. It is five 
centuries since he ceased writing and living here. After all 
commentaries, the Book itself is mainly what we know of him. 


* From “The Hero as Poet.” 


185 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

The Book;—and one might add that Portrait commonly at¬ 
tributed to Giotto, which, looking on it, you cannot help in¬ 
clining to think genuine, whoever did it. To me it is a most 
touching face; perhaps of all faces that I know, the most so. 
Lonely there, painted as on vacancy, with the simple laurel 
wound round it; the deathless sorrow and pain, the known vic¬ 
tory which is also deathless;—significant of the whole history 
of Dante! I think it is the mournfulest face that ever was 
painted from reality; an altogether tragic, heart-affecting face. 
There is in it, as foundation of it, the softness, tenderness, 
gentle affection as of a child; but all this is as if congealed 
into sharp contradiction, into abnegation, isolation, proud hope¬ 
less pain. A soft ethereal soul looking out so stern, implacable, 
grim-trenchant, as from imprisonment of thick-ribbed ice! 
Withal it is a silent pain too, a silent scornful one: the lip is 
curled in a kind of godlike disdain of the thing that is eating 
out its heart,—as if it were withal a mean insignificant thing, 
as if he whom it had power to torture and strangle were 
greater than it. The face of one wholly in protest, and life¬ 
long unsurrendering battle, against the world. Affection all 
converted into indignation: an implacable indignation: slow, 
equable, silent, like that of a god! The eye too, it looks-out as 
in a kind of surprise, a kind of inquiry, Why the world was of 
such a sort? This is Dante: so he looks, this ‘voice of ten silent 
centuries/ and sings us ‘his mystic unfathomable song.’ 

ASSIGNMENT 

Describe and try to interpret one of the following: 

A Little Boy in Trouble 
A Little Girl Vexed 
A Bewildered Man 
A Person in Desperate Plight 
A Scornful Person 
A Benevolent Person 

The Most Earnest Face I Ever Looked Upon 

186 


CHARACTERS 


A Lone Young Man in the City 

My Favorite Character in History. 

DODD AS AGUECHEEK* . 

Charles Lamb 

This selection illustrates the presentation of some special aspect 
of a personality. 

... Few now remember Dodd. What an Aguecheek the 
stage lost in him! Lovegrove, who came nearest to the old 
actors, revived the character some few seasons ago, and made 
it sufficiently grotesque; but Dodd was it, as it came out of 
nature’s hands. It might be said to remain in puris naturalibus. 
In expressing slowness of apprehension this actor surpassed 
all others. You could see the first dawn of an idea stealing 
slowly over his countenance, climbing up by little and little, 
with a painful process, till it cleared up at last to the fulness 
of a twilight conception—its highest meridian. He seemed to 
keep back his intellect, as some have had the power to retard 
their pulsation. The balloon takes less time in filling, than 
it took to cover the expansion of his broad moony face over all 
its quarters with expression. A glimmer of understanding would 
appear in a corner of his eye, and for lack of fuel go out again. 
A part of his forehead would catch a little intelligence, and 
be a long time in communicating it to the remainder. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Characterize one of the following by describing him in the role 
specified: 

When Joe Was Dressed up like a Girl 

Fanny in Tramping Costume 

When Sylvester Donned Those Chaps (That Turban, a Sailor’s 
Costume, an Eskimo’s Garb) 

Hankins in a Dress Suit 

Betty Picking Blackberries 

* From “On Some of the Old Actors” in Essays of Elia. 

l87 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


The Debutante 

Bobbie Just Before He Made His First Speech 
The Stupid (Accommodating) Waitress 
Denham Preparing for a Drop Kick 
Stebbins in the Dean’s Outer Office 
When Uncle Ned Wears His Noseglasses 
My Ancestors as Seen in the Family Album. 

SEEING MENDELSSOHN* 

Bayard Taylor 

This selection describes a great musician in an inspired moment. 
One of the best ways of revealing character is to have the person 
seen in a condition or at a task that is typical of him. 

Mendelssohn, one of the greatest living composers, has been 
spending the winter here, and I have been fortunate enough to 
see him twice. One sunny day, three weeks ago, when all the 
population of Frankfort turned out upon the budding prome¬ 
nades and the broad quays along the Main, to enjoy the first 
spring weather, I went on my usual afternoon stroll, with my 
friend Willis, whose glowing talk concerning his art is quite 
as refreshing to me after the day’s study in the gloomy Market- 
platz, as are the blue hills of Spessart, which we see from the 
bridge over the river. As we were threading the crowd of boat¬ 
men, Tyrolese, Suabians, and Bohemians, on the quay, my eye 
was caught by a man who came towards us, and whose face and 
air were in such striking contrast to those about him, that my 
whole attention was at once fixed upon him. He was simply 
and rather negligently dressed in dark cloth, with a cravat tied 
loosely about his neck. His beard had evidently not been 
touched for two or three days, and his black hair was long 
and frowzed by the wind. His eyes, which were large, dark, 
and kindling, were directed forward and lifted in the abstrac¬ 
tion of some absorbing thought, and as he passed, I heard him 

* Views Afoot, Chapter XVI. Reprinted by permission of G. P. Putnam’s 
Sons. 


CHARACTERS 


singing to himself in a voice deep but not loud, and yet with a 
far different tone from that of one who hums a careless air 
as he walks. But a few notes caught my ear, yet I remember 
their sound, elevated and with that scarcely perceptible vibra¬ 
tion which betrays a feeling below the soul’s surface, as dis¬ 
tinctly now as at that time. Willis grasped my arm quickly, and 
said in a low voice, “Mendelssohn!” I turned hastily, and 
looked after him as he went down the quay, apparently but 
half conscious of the stirring scenes around him. I could 
easily imagine how the balmy, indolent sensation in the air, 
so like a soothing and tranquillizing strain of music, should 
have led him into the serene and majestic realm of his own 
creations. 

It was something to have seen a man of genius thus alone 
and in communion with his inspired thoughts, and I could not 
repress a feeling of pleasure at the idea of having unconsciously 
acknowledged his character before I knew his name. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a brief description of one of the following: 

A Painter in His Studio (or at Work on a Canvas) 

A Musician at the Piano (or with His Violin) 

An Orator During His Peroration 

A Saintly Person at Prayer 

My Encounter with a Man of Genius (Great Ability) 

Sailors in Port 

The Vagabond Musician. 

TOM BROWN’S FIRST MEETING WITH SCUD EAST * 

Thomas Hughes 

We have here the progressive method of revealing character. At 
first we have a brief, indirect description of East, with his non¬ 
chalant, hail-fellow-well-met air. Then as we follow his words and 
conduct we perceive that he is slightly patronizing and cocky. 

* Tom Brown s School Days, Chapter V. 

189 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Finally, we discover that, despite his cool assurance, he is 
conventional. 

Tom’s heart beat quick as he passed the great school field or 
close, with its noble elms, in which several games at football 
were going on, and tried to take in at once .the long line of 
grey buildings, beginning with the chapel, and ending with 
the School-house, the residence of the head-master, where the 
great flag was lazily waving from the highest tower. And he 
began already to be proud of being a Rugby boy, as he passed 
the school gates, with the oriel window above, and saw the 
boys standing there, looking as if the town belonged to them, 
and nodding in a familiar manner to the coachman, as if any 
one of them would be quite equal to getting on the box, and 
working the team down street as well as he. One of the young 
heroes, however, ran out from the rest, and scrambled up behind; 
where, having righted himself, and nodded to the guard, with 
“How do, Jem?” he turned round to Tom, and after looking 
him over for a minute, began— 

“I say, you fellow, is your name Brown?” 

“Yes,” said Tom, in considerable astonishment; glad, how¬ 
ever, to have lighted on some one already who seemed to know 
him. 

“Ah, I thought so; you know my old aunt, Miss East, she 
lives somewhere down your way in Berkshire. She wrote to 
me that you were coming to-day, and asked me to give you a 
lift.” 

Tom was somewhat inclined to resent the patronizing air 
of his new friend, a boy just about his own height and age, but 
gifted with the most transcendent coolness and assurance, which 
Tom felt to be aggravating and hard to bear, but couldn’t for 
the life of him help admiring and envying—especially when 
young my lord begins hectoring two or three long loafing 
fellows, half-porter, half-stableman, with a strong touch of 

190 



CHARACTERS 


the blackguard; and in the end, arranges with one of them, 
nicknamed Cooey, to carry Tom’s luggage up to the School- 
house for sixpence. 

“And heark ’ee, Cooey, it must be up in ten minutes, or no 
more jobs from me. Come along, Brown.” And away swag¬ 
gers the young potentate, with his hands in his pockets, and 
Tom at his side. 

“All right, sir,” says Cooey, touching his hat, with a leer 
and a wink at his comrades. 

“Hullo, though,” says East, pulling up, and taking another 
look at Tom, “this’ll never do—haven’t you got a hat?—we 
never wear caps here. Only the louts wear caps. Bless you, 
if you were to go into the quadrangle with that thing on, I— 
don’t know what’d happen.” The very idea was quite beyond 
young Master East, and he looked unutterable things. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Describe progressively one of the following: 

The New Boy 

The Girl from a Neighboring Town 
My First Teacher 

The Superintendent of the New Sunday School 
The Vegetarian 
My First Employer 
A Fascinating Lady 
My Rival. 

2. By means of a conversation between two persons characterize 
one of them (as dull, pompous, vain, suspicious, snobbish, or what 
not). 

3. By telling of a characteristic action (heroic, sneaking, unselfish, 
spectacular, modest, or what not) portray a person indirectly. 

4. By means of a monologue characterize one of the following: 

Mrs. Heckleberry at the Telephone 

Mr. Snodgrass at the Railway Ticket-Office 

Mrs. Mudge Tells about Her Children 

Bridget Tells a Friend about the Family She Works For. 

191 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


A QUACK FINANCIER * 

H. G. Wells 

Analyze the various ways in which this financier is drawn. Is he 
more an individual than a type ? What do you know about his 
mentality by his belief in the Gnostics? What impression do you 
get from the choppy snatches of his conversation? Note the inter¬ 
pretative symbols in the last paragraph. 

But now that I resume the main line of my story it may be 
well to describe the personal appearance of my uncle as I re¬ 
member him during those magnificent years that followed his 
passage from trade to finance. The little man plumped up 
very considerably during the creation of the Tono-Bungay 
property, but with the Increasing excitements that followed 
that first flotation came dyspepsia and a certain flabbiness 
and falling away. His abdomen—if the reader will pardon 
my taking his features in the order of their value—had at first 
a nice full roundness, but afterwards it lost tone without, how¬ 
ever, losing size. He always went as though he was proud 
of it and would make as much of it as possible. To the last 
his movements remained quick and sudden, his short firm legs, 
as he walked, seemed to twinkle rather than display the scissors- 
stride of common humanity, and he never seemed to have knees, 
but instead, a dispersed flexibility of limb. 

There was, I seem to remember, a secular intensification of 
his features; his nose developed character, became aggressive, 
stuck out at the world more and more; the obliquity of his 
mouth, I think, increased. From the face that returns to my 
memory projects a long cigar that is sometimes cocked jauntily 
up from the higher corner, that sometimes droops from the 
lower;—it was as eloquent as a dog’s tail, and he removed it 
only for the more emphatic modes of speech. He assumed a 

* Tono-Bungay, Part III, Chapter I. Reprinted by permission of Duffield 
& Co. 


192 


CHARACTERS 


X>road black ribbon for his glasses, and wore them more and 
more askew as time went on. His hair seemed to stiffen with 
success, but towards the climax it thinned greatly over the 
crown, and he brushed it hard back over his ears where, how¬ 
ever, it stuck out fiercely. It always stuck out fiercely over 
his forehead, up and forward. 

He adopted an urban style of dressing with the onset of 
Tono-Bungay and rarely abandoned it. He preferred silk 
hats with ample rich brims, often a trifle large for him by 
modern ideas, and he wore them at various angles to his axis; 
his taste in trouserings was towards fairly emphatic stripes 
emd his trouser cut was neat; he liked his frock-coat long and 
frill, although that seemed to shorten him. He displayed a 
number of valuable rings, and I remember one upon his left 
little finger with a large red stone bearing Gnostic symbols. 
“Clever chaps, those Gnostics, George,” he told me. “Means 
a lot. Lucky!” He never had any but a black mohair watch- 
chain. In the country he affected grey and a large grey cloth 
top-hat, except when motoring; then he would have a brown 
deer-stalker cap and a fur suit of Esquimaux cut with a sort of 
boot-end to the trousers. Of an evening he would wear white 
waistcoats and plain gold studs. He hated diamonds. “Flashy,” 
he said they were. “Might as well wear an income tax-receipt. 
All very well for Park Lane. Unsold stock. Not my style. 
Sober financier, George.” 

So much for his visible presence. For a time it was very 
familiar to the world, for at the crest of the boom he allowed 
quite a number of photographs and at least one pencil sketch 
to be published in the sixpenny papers. . . . His voice declined 
during those years from his early tenor to a flat rich quality 
of sound that my knowledge of music is inadequate to describe. 
His Zzz-ing inrush of air became less frequent as he ripened, 
but returned in moments of excitement. Throughout his career, 
in spite of his increasing and at last astounding opulence, his 

193 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


more intimate habits remained as simple as they had been 
at Wimblehurst. He would never avail himself of the services 
of a valet; at the very climax of his greatness his trousers 
were folded by a housemaid and his shoulders brushed as he 
left his house or hotel. He became wary about breakfast as 
life advanced, and at one time talked much of Dr. Haig and 
uric acid. But for other meals he remained reasonably omnivo¬ 
rous. He was something of a gastronome, and would eat any¬ 
thing he particularly liked in an audible manner, and perspire 
upon his forehead. He was a studiously moderate drinker—ex¬ 
cept when the spirit of some public banquet or some great 
occasion caught him and bore him beyond his wariness—then 
he would, as it were, drink inadvertently and become flushed 
and talkative—about everything but his business projects. 

To make the portrait complete one wants to convey an effect 
of sudden, quick bursts of movement like the jumps of a Chinese- 
cracker to indicate that his pose, whatever it is, has been pre¬ 
ceded and will be followed by a rush. If I were painting him, 
I should certainly give him for a background that distressed, 
uneasy sky that was popular in the eighteenth century, and at 
a convenient distance a throbbing motor-car, very big and con¬ 
temporary, a secretary hurrying with papers, and an alert 
chauffeur. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a short theme on one of the following subjects, employing 
appropriate symbols to illustrate the character: 

Quick-Tempered Jim 
The Grind 

A Bit of Human Wreckage 
The College Cheer-Leader 
The Patient Crippled Lady 
The Janitor 
The Scrub Woman 

The Woman Who Dusts All the Time 
My High-School Teacher. 


194 


CHARACTERS 


WOUTER VAN TWILLER * 

Washington Irving 

The method here employed is to describe the person first and the 
temperament afterward. 

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was formed and 
proportioned, as though it had been moulded by the hands of 
some cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and 
lordly grandeur. He was exactly five feet six inches in height, 
and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was a 
perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that dame 
Nature with all her sex’s ingenuity, would have been puzzled 
to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she 
wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top 
of his back-bone, just between the shoulders. His body was 
oblong and particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely 
ordered by Providence, seeing that he was a man of sedentary 
habits, and very averse to the idle labor of walking. His legs 
were short, but sturdy in proportion to the weight they had 
to sustain; so that when erect he had not a little the appearance 
of a beer barrel on skids. His face, that infallible index of 
the mind, presented a vast expanse, unfun*owed by any of 
those lines and angles which disfigure the human countenance 
with what is termed expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled 
in the midst, like two stars of lesser magnitude in a hazy firma¬ 
ment; and his full-fed cheeks, which seemed to have taken toll 
of every thing that went into his mouth, were curiously mottled 
and streaked with a dusky red, like a Spitzenberg apple. 

His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his 
four stated meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he 
smoked and doubted eight hours, and he slept the remaining 
twelve of the four-and-twenty. Such was the renowned Wouter 

* From Knickerbocker’s History of New York. 

195 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Van Twiller—a true philosopher, for his mind was either 
elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and per¬ 
plexities of this world. He had lived in it for years, without 
feeling the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved 
round it, or it round the sun; and he had watched, for at least 
half a century, the smoke curling from his pipe to the ceiling, 
without once troubling his head with any of those numerous 
theories, by which a philosopher would have perplexed his 
brain, in accounting for its rising above the surrounding 
atmosphere. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Describe first the physical appearance and afterward the tempera¬ 
ment of one of the following: 

The Oddest-Looking Man I ever Saw 

A Shriveled Old Lady 

The Auctioneer 

The Umpire 

The Barker at the Sideshow 

The Old Clothes Man 

The Newsboy 

The Girl at the Perfume Counter. 

JAMES HOGG, THE ETTRICK SHEPHERD* 

J. G. Lockhart 

The first paragraph of this selection gives a general account and 
characterization of Hogg, the second an account of ludicrous hap¬ 
penings on his visit to Scott. 

I have already said something of the beginning of Scott’s 
acquaintance with “the Ettrick Shepherd.” Shortly after their 
first meeting, Hogg, coming into Edinburgh with a flock of 
sheep, was seized with a sudden ambition of seeing his name 
in print, and he wrote out that same night “Willie and Katie,” 
and a few other ballads, already famous in the Forest, which 

* Life of Scott, Volume II, Chapter XII. 

196 


CHARACTERS 


some obscure bookseller gratified him by putting forth ac¬ 
cordingly; but they appear to have attracted no notice beyond 
their original sphere. Hogg then made an excursion into the 
Highlands, in quest of employment as overseer of some ex¬ 
tensive sheep-farm; but, though Scott had furnished him with 
strong recommendations to various friends, he returned with¬ 
out success. He printed an account of his travels, however, in 
a set of letters in the Scots Magazine, which, though exceedingly 
rugged and uncouth, had abundant traces of the native shrewd¬ 
ness and genuine poetical feeling of this remarkable man. 
These also failed to excite attention; but, undeterred by such 
disappointments, the Shepherd no sooner read the third volume 
of the “Minstrelsy,” than he made up his mind that the Editor’s 
“Imitations of the Ancients” were by no means what they 
should have been. “Immediately,” he says, in one of his many 
Memoirs of himself, “I chose a number of traditional facts, 
and set about imitating the manner of the Ancients myself.” 
These imitations he transmitted to Scott, who warmly praised 
the many striking beauties scattered over their rough surface. 

The next time that Hogg’s business carried him to Edin¬ 
burgh, he waited upon Scott, who invited him to dinner in 
Castle Street, in company with William Laidlaw, who hap¬ 
pened also to be in town, and some other admirers of the rustic 
genius. When Hogg entered the drawing-room, Mrs. Scott, 
being at the time in a delicate state of health, was reclining on 
a sofa. The Shepherd, after being presented, and making his 
best bow, forthwith took possession of another sofa placed 
opposite to hers, and stretched himself thereupon at all his 
length; for, as he said afterwards, “I thought I could never 
do wrong to copy the lady of the house.” As his dress at this 
period was precisely that in which any ordinary herdsman 
attends cattle to the market, and as his hands, moreover, bore 
most legible marks of a recent sheep-smearing, the lady of the 
house did not observe with perfect equanimity the novel usage 

197 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


to which her chintz was exposed. The Shepherd, however, re¬ 
marked nothing of all this—dined heartily and drank freely, 
and, by jest, anecdote, and song, afforded plentiful merriment 
to the more civilized part of the company. As the liquor 
operated, his familiarity increased and strengthened; from “Mr. 
Scott,” he advanced to “Sherra,” and thence to “Scott,” 
“Walter,” and “Wattie,” until, at supper, he fairly convulsed 
the whole party by addressing Mrs. Scott as “Charlotte.” 

ASSIGNMENT 

First characterize one of the following, and then give an account 
of some typical piece of his conduct: 

A Boor 

Jenks in the Company of His Betters 

The City Young Man at a Country Social 

A Diamond in the Rough 

The Awkwardest Man 

A Bashful Boy 

The Little Girl with Pigtails 

How Charlie Spoiled the Snapshot. 

BEATRIX DESCENDING THE STAIR * 

William Makepeace Thackeray 

This selection illustrates point of view in description. Thackeray 
describes a woman of extraordinary beauty; that his description may 
be the more effective, he makes us see her at a moment and in the 
midst of an action that shows that beauty at its loveliest. Note that 
the description would lose much of its force and charm if the last 
skilfully summarizing sentence were omitted. 

This laughing colloquy took place in the hall of Walcote 
House: in the midst of which is a staircase that leads from an 
open gallery, where are the doors of the sleeping chambers: and 
from one of these, a wax candle in her hand, and illuminating 

* Henry Esmond, Book II, Chapter VII. 

198 


CHARACTERS 


her, came Mistress Beatrix—the light falling indeed upon the 
scarlet riband which she wore, and upon the most brilliant 
white neck in the world. 

Esmond had left a child and found a woman, grown beyond 
the common height; and arrived at such a dazzling completeness 
of beauty, that his eyes might well show surprise and delight 
at beholding her. In hers there was a brightness so lustrous and 
melting, that I have seen a whole assembly follow her as if by 
an attraction irresistible: and that night the great Duke was at 
the playhouse after Ramillies, every soul turned and looked (she 
chanced to enter at the opposite side of the theatre at the 
same moment) at her, and not at him. She was a brown beauty: 
that is, her eyes, hair, and eyebrows and eyelashes were dark: 
her hair curling with rich undulations, and waving over her 
shoulders; but her complexion was as dazzling white as snow 
in sunshine: except her cheeks, which were a bright red, and 
her lips, which were of a still deeper crimson. Her mouth and 
chin, they said, were too large and full, and so they might be 
for a goddess in marble, but not for a woman whose eyes were 
fire, whose look was love, whose voice was the sweetest low 
song, whose shape was perfect symmetry, health, decision, ac¬ 
tivity, whose foot as it planted itself on the ground was firm 
but flexible, and whose motion, whether rapid or slow, was 
always perfect grace—agile as a nymph, lofty as a queen—now 
melting, now imperious, now sarcastic—there was no single 
movement of hers but was beautiful. As he thinks of her, he 
who writes feels young again, and remembers a paragon. 

So she came holding her dress with one fair rounded arm, 
and her taper before her, tripping down the stair to greet 
Esmond. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a description of one of the following: 

A Lovely Woman Who Stands with Lips Parted Admiring a 
Beautiful Landscape 


199 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


An Antelope (a Wild Horse) That Stands Poised for a Moment 
Before Taking to Flight 

A Pointer or Setter Waiting for the Hunter to Flush the Game 
A Baby at the Telephone 

A Mother Bending Over to Kiss Her Baby Goodnight 
A Beautiful Girl Driving a Car 
A Young Girl in the Light of the Reading Lamp 
The Fullback’s Fiancee When He Is Making the Touchdown. 


HETTY IN THE DAIRY * 

George Eliot 

This selection resembles the preceding in the device it uses. A 
young man half in love with a girl sees her amid enhancing sur¬ 
roundings. But these surroundings are also typical. Hetty, unlike 
Beatrix, is a workaday girl—the setting not only adds to her charm; 
it almost seems an habitual part of her. 

. . . “By the by, I’ve never seen your dai^y; I must see your 
dairy, Mrs. Poyser.” 

“Indeed, sir, it’s not fit for you to go in, for Hetty’s in the 
middle o’ making the butter, for the churning was thrown late, 
and I’m quite ashamed.” This Mrs. Poyser said blushing, 
and believing that the Captain was really interested in her 
milk-pans, and would adjust his opinion of her to the appear¬ 
ance of her dairy. 

“Oh, I’ve no doubt it’s in capital order. Take me in,” said 
the Captain, himself leading the way, while Mrs. Poyser 
followed. 

The dairy was certainly worth looking at: it was a scene 
to sicken for with a sort of calenture in hot and dusty streets— 
such coolness, such purity, such fresh fragrance of new-pressed 
cheese, of firm butter, of wooden vessels perpetually bathed in 
pure water; such soft coloring of red earthenware and creamy 
surfaces, brown wood and polished tin, gray limestone and rich 

* Adam Bede, Chapters VI and VII. 


200 


CHARACTERS 


orange-red rust on the iron weights and hooks and hinges. 
But one gets only a confused notion of these details when they 
surround a distractingly pretty girl of seventeen, standing on 
little pattens and rounding her dimpled arm to lift a pound of 
butter out of the scale. 

Hetty blushed a deep rose-color when Captain Donnithorne 
entered the dairy and spoke to her; but it was not at all a 
distressed blush, for it was inwreathed with smiles and dimples, 
and with sparkles from under long curled dark eyelashes; and 
while her aunt was discoursing to him about the limited amount 
of milk that was to be spared for butter and cheese so long as 
the calves were not all weaned, and a large quantity but in¬ 
ferior quality of milk yielded by the short-horn, which had 
been bought on experiment, together with other matters which 
must be interesting to a young gentleman who would one day 
be a landlord, Hetty tossed and patted her pound of butter with 
quite a self-possessed, coquettish air, slyly conscious that no 
turn of her head was lost. 

There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make 
fools of themselves in various styles, from the desperate to 
the sheepish; but there is one order of beauty which seems 
made to turn the heads not only of men, but of all intelligent 
mammals, even of women. It is a beauty like that of kittens, 
or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with 
their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle and to engage 
in conscious mischief—a beauty with which you can never 
be angry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to com¬ 
prehend the state of mind into which it throws you. Hetty 
Sorrel’s was that sort of beauty. Her aunt, Mrs. Poyser, who 
professed to despise all personal attractions, and intended to 
be the severest of mentors, continually gazed at Hetty’s charms 
by the sly, fascinated in spite of herself; and after administer¬ 
ing such a scolding as naturally flowed from her anxiety to do 
well by her husband’s niece—who had no mother of her own 

201 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


to scold her, poor thing!—she would often confess to her hus¬ 
band, when they were safe out of hearing, that she firmly be¬ 
lieved “the naughtier the little hussy behaved, the prettier she 
looked.” 

It is of little use for me to tell you that Hetty’s cheek was 
like a rose petal, that dimples played about her pouting lips, 
that her large dark eyes hid a soft roguishness under their 
long lashes, and that her curly hair, though all pushed back 
under her round cap while she was at work, stole back in dark 
delicate rings on her forehead, and about her white shell-like 
ears; it is of little use for me to say how lovely was the contour 
of her pink-and-white neckerchief, tucked into her low plum- 
colored stuff bodice, or how the linen butter-making apron, 
with its bib, seemed a thing to be imitated in silk by duchesses, 
since it fell in such charming lines, or how her brown stockings 
and thick-soled buckled shoes lost all that clumsiness which 
they must certainly have had when empty of her foot and ankle; 
—of little use, unless you have seen a woman who affected you 
as Hetty affected her beholders, for otherwise, though you might 
conjure up the image of a lovely woman, she would not in 
the least resemble that distracting kitten-like maiden. I might 
mention all the divine charms of a bright spring day, but if 
you had never in your life utterly forgotten yourself in straining 
your eyes after the mounting lark, or in wandering through the 
still lanes when the fresh-opened blossoms fill them with a 
sacred silent beauty like that of fretted aisles, where would be 
the use of my descriptive catalogue? I could never make you 
know what I meant by a bright spring day. Hetty’s was a 
springtide beauty; it was the beauty of young frisking things, 
round-limbed, gambolling, circumventing you by a false air of 
innocence—the innocence of a young star-browed calf, for ex¬ 
ample, that, being inclined for a promenade out of bounds, 
leads you a severe steeplechase over hedge and ditch, and only 
comes to a stand in the middle of a bog. 


202 


CHARACTERS 


And they are the prettiest attitudes and movements into which 
a pretty girl is thrown in making up butter—tossing move¬ 
ments that give a charming curve to the arm, and a sideward 
inclination of the round neck; little patting and rolling move¬ 
ments with the palm of the hand, and nice adaptations and 
finishings which cannot at all be effected without a great play 
of the pouting mouth and the dark eyes. And then the butter 
itself seems to communicate a fresh charm—it is so pure, so 
sweet-scented; it is turned off the mould with such a beautiful 
firm surface, like marble in a pale yellow light! Moreover, 
Hetty was particularly clever at making up the butter; it was 
the one performance of hers that her aunt allowed to pass with¬ 
out severe criticism; so she handled it with all the grace that 
belongs to mastery. 


ASSIGNMENT 

1. Give a sense first of the surroundings and then of the person 
in a description of one of the following. (The best method probably 
is to relate what a visitor sees.) 

The Stoker in the Engine-Room 

The Printer When a Newspaper Is Going Through the Press 

A Negro Picking Cotton 

A Bootblack Polishing Shoes 

A Modern Dairyman at Milking-Time 

A Bank Clerk Balancing His Books 

The Presiding Officer at a Meeting of the Board 

The Sexton Digging a Grave 

The Jockey on the Race Track 

A Call Boy with a Telegram in a Hotel Lobby 

A Traffic Policeman 

The Floor-Walker of a Department Store 
The Property Man During a Performance at the Theatre 
A Mother Trying to Get All Her Children and Parcels Aboard the 
Train. 

2 . By describing a person’s house or surroundings portray him 
for us indirectly. 


203 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


SIR ROGER AT CHURCH * 

Joseph Addison 

This selection places a man in a typical environment and lets him 
perform characteristic deeds there. By means of these illuminating 
actions it permits the man’s character to reveal itself. 

My friend Sir Roger, being a good churchman, has beautified 
the inside of his church with several texts of his own choosing; 
he has likewise given a handsome pulpit cloth, and railed in 
the communion table at his own expense. He has often told 
me that, at his coming to his estate, he found his parishioners 
very irregular; and that in order to make them kneel and join 
in the responses, he gave every one of them a hassock and a 
Common Prayer Book, and at the same time employed an 
itinerant singing-master, who goes about the country for that 
purpose, to instruct them rightly in the tunes of the Psalms; 
upon which they now very much value themselves, and indeed 
outdo most of the country churches that I have ever heard. 

As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, he 
keeps them in very good order, and will suffer nobody to sleep 
in it besides himself; for, if by chance he has been surprised 
into a short nap at sermon, upon recovering out of it he stands 
up and looks about him, and, if he sees anybody else nodding, 
either wakes them himself, or sends his servant to them. Several 
other of the old knight’s particularities break out upon these oc¬ 
casions: sometimes he will be lengthening out a verse in the 
singing Psalms half a minute after the rest of the congregation 
have done with it; sometimes, when he is pleased with the 
matter of his devotion, he pronounces “Amen” three or four 
times to the same prayer; and sometimes stands up when every¬ 
body else is upon their knees, to count the congregation, or 
see if any of his tenants are missing. 

* The Spectator, No. 112. 

204 


CHARACTERS 


I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old friend, 
in the midst of the service, calling out to one John Matthews 
to mind what he was about, and not disturb the congregation. 
This John Matthews, it seems, is remarkable for being an idle 
fellow, and at that time was kicking his heels for his diversion. 
This authority of the knight, though exerted in that odd manner 
which accompanies him in all circumstances of life, has a very 
good effect upon the parish, who are not polite enough to see 
anything ridiculous in his behavior; besides that the general 
good sense and worthiness of his character makes his friends 
observe these little singularities as foils that rather set off than 
blemish his good qualities. 

As soon as the sermon is finished, nobody presumes to stir 
till Sir Roger is gone out of the church. The knight walks 
down from his seat in the chancel between a double row of his 
tenants, that stand bowing to him on each side, and every now 
and then inquires how such an one’s wife, or mother, or son, or 
father do, whom he does not see at church,—which is under¬ 
stood as a secret reprimand to the person that is absent. 

The chaplain has often told me that, upon a catechising 
day, when Sir Roger had been pleased with a boy that answers 
well, he has ordered a Bible to be given him next day for his en¬ 
couragement, and sometimes accompanies it with a flitch of 
bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has likewise added five pounds 
a year to the clerk’s place; and, that he may encourage the 
young fellows to make themselves perfect in the church service, 
has promised, upon the death of the present incumbent, who 
is very old, to bestow it according to merit. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Show one of the indicated persons engaged in wonted employment. 
Reveal as much as you can of the person’s temperament without 
resorting to outright exposition. 

The Kindergarten Teacher 

The Charitable Old Lady 


205 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


The Man Who Loves Children 

The Leader of the Boy Scouts 

The Person Who Is the Life of the Party 

A Lovable Old Autocrat 

The Boy Who Was the Leader in Mischief 

Cousin Amelia Looks In. 

THE ELEMENT OF MYSTERY IN WHISTLER* 

Gamaliel Bradford 

This selection sums up one phase of the significance of an artist. 
Though an excerpt from a longer paper, it illustrates how students 
may perhaps best discuss a writer, a musician, or a painter. The 
student lacks the background for a full and final critical pronounce¬ 
ment ; let him restrict himself, instead, to some quality in the artist 
which impresses him. If he can give illustrative incidents or quota¬ 
tions, by all means he should. Apt quotations are like spotlights 
thrown on an idea or a character. 

It is needless to say that the theory of mystery as I have 
elaborated it—perhaps too subtly—is not explicit in any writing 
or recorded speech of Whistler himself. When one has it in 
mind, however, there is a curious interest in catching the notes 
and echoes of it in his own words. Thus, in practical matters, 
take his remark to one who commented on the unfinished con¬ 
dition of Whistler’s dwelling. “You see, I do not care for 
settling down anywhere. Where there is no more space for im¬ 
provement, or dreaming about improvement, where mystery 
is in perfect shape, it is finis —the end—death. There is no 
hope, nor outlook left.” Or take the same instinct in a more 
artistic connection. “They talk about the blue skies of Italy,— 
the skies of Italy are not blue, they are black. You do not 
see blue skies except in Holland and here, where you get great 
white clouds, and then the spaces between are blue! and in 
Holland there is atmosphere, and that means mystery. There 

* From American Portraits. Used by permission of, and by special arrange¬ 
ment with, Houghton Mifflin Co., the authorized publishers. 

206 


CHARACTERS 


is mystery here, too, and the people don’t want it. What they 
like is when the east wind blows, when you can look across 
the river and count the wires in the canary bird’s cage on the 
other side.” Finally, take the wonderful words about painting 
in the twilight, full of mystery and vague suggestion as a poem 
of Shelley: “As the light fades and the shadows deepen, all 
the petty and exciting details vanish; everything trivial dis¬ 
appears, and I see things as they are, in great, strong masses; 
the buttons are lost, but the garment remains; the garment is 
lost, but the sitter remains; the sitter is lost, but the shadow 
remains. And that, night cannot efface from the painter’s 
imagination.” Even allowing for the touch of Whistler’s 
natural irony, such a view of art seems to amend Gautier’s 
celebrated phrase into “I am a man for whom the invisible world 
exists,” and to give double emphasis to the lines of Keats, 

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 
Are sweeter.” 

So we find in Whistler, as we found implicit in Mark Twain 
and Sidney Lanier and explicit in Henry Adams, the immense 
and overwhelming heritage of ignorance which the nineteenth 
century transmitted to the twentieth. But whereas Mark erected 
ignorance into a dogmatic religion of negation, and Adams 
trifled with it, and Lanier battled with it, Whistler drew out 
of it the enduring solace of artistic effort, and applied to its 
persistent torment the immortal, divine recipe for cure of head¬ 
ache, heartache, soul-ills, body-ills, poverty, ignominy, con¬ 
tempt, neglect, and pain, the creation, or even the attempted 
creation, of things beautiful. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Explain and discuss your ideas on one of these topics: 

As I Picture Myself 25 Years Hence 

Something That Impresses Me in My Favorite Author 

207 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Something That Impresses Me in My Favorite Book 

What I Like Most in the Painter - 

What I Like Most in the Music of - 

What Appeals to Me Most in My Favorite Painting 
Why Statuary Appeals to Me More (Less) Than the Other Arts 
Some Conclusions I Have Reached About the Comic Section of 
the Sunday Newspaper 

Some Faults (Virtues) of the Modern Newspaper (Magazine) 
Why I Like (Dislike) the Happy Ending 

Should the Villain Sometimes Be Represented as Able to Defeat 
the Hero? 

Why Fairy Stories (Realistic Novels, Thesis Plays) Interest Me 
More than Other Types of Literature 
The Quality in Elwood That Arouses My Envy. 

ROYAL FATHER AND ROYAL SON * 

John Lothrop Motley 

This selection presents first the father, then the son, and then a 
statement of the importance of the latter’s accession. It shows 
both contrasts and parallels. Some of the father’s features and 
traits are repeated in the son, some are not; the portrayal gains 
from the constant comparison we make between the two men. 

Charles the Fifth was then fifty-five years and eight months 
old: but he was already decrepit with premature old age. He 
was of about the middle height, and had been athletic and well 
proportioned. Broad in the shoulders, deep in the chest, thin 
in the flank, very muscular in the arms and legs, he had been 
able to match himself with all competitors in the tourney and 
the ring, and to vanquish the bull with his own hand in the 
favorite national amusement of Spain. He had been able in 
the field to do the duty of captain and soldier, to endure fatigue 
and exposure, and every privation except fasting. These per¬ 
sonal advantages were now departed. Crippled in hands, knees, 
and legs, he supported himself with difficulty upon a crutch, 

* Rise oy the Dutch Republic, Part I, Chapter I. 

208 




CHARACTERS 


with the aid of an attendant’s shoulder. In face he had always 
been extremely ugly, and time had certainly not improved his 
physiognomy. His hair, once of a light color, was now white 
with age, close-clipped and bristling; his beard was gray, coarse, 
and shaggy. His forehead was spacious and commanding; 
the eye dark-blue, with an expression both majestic and benig¬ 
nant. His nose was aquiline, but crooked. The lower part of 
his face was famous for its deformity. The under lip, a Bur¬ 
gundian inheritance, as faithfully transmitted as the duchy 
and county, was heavy and hanging; the lower jaw protruding 
so far beyond the upper that it was impossible for him to bring 
together the few fragments of teeth which still remained, or 
to speak a whole sentence in an intelligible voice. Eating and 
talking, occupations to which he was always much addicted, 
were becoming daily more arduous, in consequence of this origi¬ 
nal defect, which now seemed hardly human, but rather an 
original deformity. 

So much for the father. The son, Philip the Second, was 
a small, meagre man, much below the middle height, with thin 
legs, a narrow chest, and the shrinking, timid air of an habitual 
invalid. He seemed so little, upon his first visit to his aunts, 
the Queens Eleanor and Mary, accustomed to look upon proper 
men in Flanders and Germany, that he was fain to win their 
favor by making certain attempts in the tournaments, in which 
his success was sufficiently problematical. “His body,’' says 
his professed panegyrist, “was but a human cage, in which, 
however brief and narrow, dwelt a soul to whose flight the im¬ 
measurable expanse of heaven was too contracted.” The same 
wholesale admirer adds that “his aspect was so reverend that 
rustics who met him alone in a wood, without knowing him, 
bowed down with instinctive veneration.” In face, he was the 
living image of his father, having the same broad forehead 
and blue eye, with the same aquiline, but better proportioned, 
In the lower part of the countenance, the remarkable 

209 


nose. 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Burgundian deformity was likewise reproduced. He had the 
same heavy, hanging lip, with a vast mouth, and monstrously 
protruding lower jaw. His complexion was fair, his hair light 
and thin, his beard yellow, short, and pointed. He had the 
aspect of a Fleming, but the loftiness of a Spaniard. His de¬ 
meanor in public was still, silent, almost sepulchral. He looked 
habitually on the ground when he conversed, was chary of speech, 
embarrassed, and even suffering in manner. This was ascribed 
partly to a natural haughtiness which he had occasionally en¬ 
deavored to overcome, and partly to habitual pains in the 
stomach, occasioned by his inordinate fondness for pastry. 

Such was the personal appearance of the man who was about 
to receive into his single hand the destinies of half the world; 
whose single will was, for the future, to shape the fortunes of 
every individual then present, of many millions more in Europe, 
America, and at the ends of the earth, and of countless millions 
yet unborn. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Use comparison in a description of one of the following: 

A Dissipated Father and an Innocent Child 

An Old Woman and Her Grown-Up Daughter 

Two Brothers (Sisters) 

A Pair of Cousins 

The Two Sides of His Nature Which a Boy Exhibits at Different 
Times 

A Girl with a Scrub-Mop and the Same Girl on Graduation Day 

An Actor Presenting a Character First in Good and Later in Ill 
Fortune 

A Public Man and His Rival. 

JOHN MILTON’S BEDTIME OLIVES* 

Havelock Ellis 

This selection dwells upon the significance of an act which, though 
petty in itself, shows the human side of a great man we regard as 

* Impressions and Comments, pages 74-77. Used by permission of, and 
by special arrangement with, Houghton Mifflin Co., the authorized publishers. 

210 


CHARACTERS 


austere. In subtle ways too it reflects Milton’s spirit. For example, 
the single quoted worcf “refocillated’’ happily reminds us of Milton’s 
fondness in his prose for sonorous Latin terms. 

For supper, we are told, Milton used often to eat a few olives. 
That statement has frequently recurred to my mind. I never 
grow weary of the significance of little things. What do the 
so-called great things of life count for in the end, the fashion 
of a man’s showing-off for the benefit of his fellows? It is 
the little things that give its savor or its bitterness to life, the 
little things that direct the currents of activity, the little things 
that alone really reveal the intimate depths of personality. De 
minimis non curat lex. But against that dictum of human law 
one may place the Elder Pliny’s maxim concerning natural law: 
Nusquam magis quam in minimis tota est Natura. For in the 
sphere of Nature’s Laws it is only the minimal things that 
are worth caring about, the least things in the world, mere 
specks on the Walls of Life, as it seems to you. But one sets 
one’s eyes to them, and, behold, they are chinks that look out into 
Infinity. 

Milton is one of the “great” things in English life and litera¬ 
ture, and his admirers dwell on his great achievements. These 
achievements often leave me a little cold, intellectually ac¬ 
quiescent, nothing more. But when I hear of these olives which 
the blind old scholar-poet was wont to eat for supper I am at 
once brought nearer to him. I intuitively divine what they 
meant to him. 

Olives are not the most obvious food for an English Puritan 
of the seventeenth century, though olive-oil is said to have been 
used here even in the fourteenth century. Milton might more 
naturally, one supposes, like his arch-Puritanic foe, Prynne, 
have “refocillated” his brain with ale and bread, and indeed 
he was still too English, and perhaps too wise, to disdain either. 

But Milton had lived in Italy. There the most brilliant and 


211 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


happy days of his life had been spent. All the rest of his real 
and inner life was but an echo of the music he had heard in 
Italy. For Milton was only on one side of his nature the aus¬ 
tere Latin secretary of Cromwell and the ferocious opponent 
of Salmasius. He was also the champion of the tardy English 
Renaissance, the grave and .beautiful youth whose every fibre 
thrilled to the magic of Italy. For two rich months he had 
lived in Florence, then the most attractive of Italian cities, 
with Gaddi, Dati, Coltellini, and the rest for his friends. He 
had visited Galileo, then just grown blind, as he was himself 
destined to be. His inner sight always preserved the old visions 
he had garnered 

At evening from the top of Fesole, 

Or in Valdarno. 

Now at last, in the company of sour and ignorant Puritans 
who counted him one of themselves, while a new generation grew 
up which ignored him and which he disdained, in this sul¬ 
phurous atmosphere of London which sickened and drove away 
his secretary Ellwood, Milton ate a handful of olives. And 
all Italy came to him in those olives. 

“What! when the sun rises do you not see a round disc of 
fire, somewhat like a guinea?” “Oh no, no, no!” said Blake, 
“I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host.” And 
these dull green exotic fruits which the blind Milton ate bed- 
wards were the heralds of dreams diviner than he freighted with 
magnificent verse. 

ASSIGNMENT 

In a style as carefully adapted as you can make it to the matter 
write a theme on one of these topics: 

A Revealing Incident About a Great Author 

A Revealing Incident About a Famous Character in History 

A Great Man Who Is Imperfectly Understood 

A Roughneck Element in a Sensitive, Refined Person 


212 


CHARACTERS 


When We Learned That Sterrett Meant Well 
\\ hen I Found That Old Grigsby Had a Heart 
What I Am When I ’m not Trying to Be Somebody Else 

Why - Is My Best Friend 

The Letter I Wrote in Anger. 


MISS ASPHYXIA SMITH * 

Harriet Beecher Stowe 

This selection reveals a woman dominated by a single trait—grim, 
joyless, unflagging resolution. Note that the author both describes 
and interprets—she makes you see the woman; she also makes you 
feel her. 

. . . Miss Asphyxia Smith, the elder sister of old Crab, 
was at this moment turning the child round, and examining her 
through a pair of large horn spectacles, with a view to “taking 
her to raise,” as she phrased it. 

Now all Miss Asphyxia’s ideas of the purpose and aim of 
human existence were comprised in one word,—work. She was 
herself a working machine, always wound up and going,—up at 
early cock-crowing, and busy till bedtime, with a rampant and 
fatiguing industry that never paused for a moment. She con¬ 
ducted a large farm by the aid of a hired man, and drove a 
flourishing dairy, and was universally respected in the neighbor¬ 
hood as a smart woman. 

Latterly, as her young cousin, who had shared the toils of 
the house with her, had married and left her, Miss Asphyxia 
had talked of “takin’ a child from the poor-house, and so 
raisin’ her own help”; and it was with the view of this “raisin’ 
her help,” that she was thus turning over and inspecting the 
little article which we have spoken of. 

Apparently she was somewhat puzzled, and rather scandalized, 
that Nature should evidently have expended so much in a merely 

* Oldtown Folks, Chapters VIII and X. 

213 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


ornamental way on an article which ought to have been made 
simply for service. She brushed up a handful of the clustering 
curls in her large, bony hand, and said, with a sniff, “These ’ll 
have to come right off to begin with; gracious me, what a 
tangle!” 

“Mother always brushed them out every day,” said the child. 

“And who do you suppose is going to spend an hour every day 
brushing your hair, Miss Pert?” said Miss Asphyxia. “That 
ain’t what I take ye for, I tell you. You ’ve got to learn to work 
for your living; and you ought to be thankful if I’m willing to 
show you how.” 

The little girl did not appear particularly thankful. She bent 
her soft, pencilled eyebrows in a dark frown, and her great hazel 
eyes had gathering in them a cloud of sullen gloom. Miss As¬ 
phyxia did not mind her frowning,—perhaps did not notice it. 
She had it settled in her mind, as a first principle, that children 
never liked anything that was good for them, and that, of course, 
if she took a child, it would have to be made to come to her by 
forcible proceedings promptly instituted. . . . 

“O, she can do considerable many little chores,” said Old 
Crab’s wife. 

“Yes,” said Miss Asphyxia; “there can a good deal be got 
out of a child if you keep at ’em, hold ’em in tight, and never let 
’em have their head a minute; push right hard on behind ’em, 
and you get considerable. That’s the way I was raised. . . .” 

Miss Asphyxia was tall and spare. Nature had made her, as 
she often remarked of herself, entirely for use. She had allowed 
for her muscles no cushioned repose of fat, no redundant smooth¬ 
ness of outline. There was nothing to her but good, strong, solid 
bone, and tough, wiry, well-strung muscle. She was past fifty, 
and her hair was already well streaked with gray, and so thin 
that, when tightly combed and tied, it still showed bald cracks, 
not very sightly to the eye. The only thought that Miss As¬ 
phyxia ever had had in relation to the coiffure of her hair was 

214 


CHARACTERS 


that it was to be got out of her way. Hair she considered prin¬ 
cipally as something that might get into people’s eyes, if not 
properly attended to; and accordingly, at a very early hour every 
morning, she tied all hers in a very tight knot, and then secured 
it by a horn comb on the top of her head. To tie this knot so 
tightly that, once done, it should last all day, was Miss As¬ 
phyxia’s only art of the toilet, and she tried her work every 
morning by giving her head a shake, before she left her looking- 
glass, not unlike that of an unruly cow. If this process did not 
start the horn comb from its moorings, Miss Asphyxia was well 
pleased. For the rest, her face was dusky and wilted,—guarded 
by gaunt, high cheek-bones, and watched over by a pair of small 
gray eyes of unsleeping vigilance. The shaggy eyebrows that 
overhung them were grizzled, like her hair. 

It would not be proper to say that Miss Asphyxia looked 
ill-tempered; but her features could never, by any stretch of 
imagination, be supposed to wear an expression of tenderness. 
They were set in an austere, grim gravity, whose lines had be¬ 
come more deeply channelled by every year of her life. As 
related to her fellow-creatures, she was neither passionate nor 
cruel. We have before described her as a working machine, for¬ 
ever wound up to high-pressure working-point; and this being 
her nature, she trod down and crushed whatever stood in the way 
of her work, with as little compunction as if she had been a 
steam-engine or a power-loom. 

Miss Asphyxia had a full conviction of what a recent pleasant 
writer has denominated the total depravity of matter. She was 
not given to many words, but it might often be gathered from 
her brief discourses that she had always felt herself, so to speak, 
sword in hand against a universe where everything was running 
to disorder,—everything was tending to slackness, shiftlessness, 
unthrift, and she alone was left on the earth to keep things in 
their places. Her hired men were always too late up in the 
morning,—always shirking,—always taking too long a nap at 

215 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


noon; everybody was watching to cheat her in every bargain; 
her horse, cow, pigs,—all her possessions,—were ready at the 
slightest winking of her eye, or relaxing of her watch, to fall 
into all sorts of untoward ways and gyrations; and therefore 
she slept, as it were, in her armor, and spent her life as a senti¬ 
nel on duty. 

In taking a child, she had had her eyes open only to one pat¬ 
ent fact,—that a child was an animal who would always be 
wanting to play, and that she must make all her plans and cal¬ 
culations to keep her from playing. . . . 

Perhaps my readers may have turned over a great, flat stone 
some time in their rural rambles, and found under it little clovers 
and tufts of grass pressed to earth, flat, white, and bloodless, but 
still growing, stretching, creeping towards the edges, where their 
plant instinct tells them there is light and deliverance. The 
kind of life that the little Tina led, under the care of Miss As¬ 
phyxia, resembled that of these poor clovers. It was all shut 
down and repressed, but growing still. She was roused at the 
first glimmer of early dawn, dressing herself in the dark, and, 
coming out, set the table for breakfast. From that time through 
the day, one task followed another in immediate succession, with 
the sense of the ever-driving Miss Asphyxia behind her. 

Once, in the course of her labors, she let fall a saucer, while 
Miss Asphyxia, by good fortune, was out of the room. To tell 
of her mischance, and expose herself to the awful consequences 
of her anger, was more than her childish courage was equal to; 
and, with a quick adroitness, she slipped the broken fragments in 
a crevice between the kitchen doorstep and the house, and en¬ 
deavored to look as if nothing had occurred. Alas! she had not 
counted on Miss Asphyxia’s unsleeping vigilance of hearing. 
She was down stairs in a trice. 

“What have you been breaking?” 

“Nothing, ma’am,” was the trembling response. 

216 


CHARACTERS 


“Don’t tell me! I heard something fall.” 

“I think it must have been the tongs,” said the little girl,— 
not over-wise or ingenious in her subterfuge. 

“Tongs! likely story,” said Miss Asphyxia, keenly running 
her eye over the cups and saucers. 

“One, two,—here’s one of the saucers gone. What have 
you done with it?” 

The child, now desperate with fear, saw no refuge but in per¬ 
sistent denial, till Miss Asphyxia, seizing her, threatened im¬ 
mediate whipping if she did not at once confess. 

“I dropped a saucer,” at last said the frightened child. 

“You did, you little slut?” said Miss Asphyxia, administer¬ 
ing a box on her ear. “Where is it? what have you done with the 
pieces?” 

“I dropped them down by the doorstep,” said the sobbing 
culprit. 

Miss Asphyxia soon fished them up, and held them up in aw¬ 
ful judgment. “You’ve been telling me a lie,—a naughty, 
wicked lie,” she said. “I ’ll soon cure you of lying. I ’ll scour 
your mouth out for you.” And forthwith, taking a rag with some 
soap and sand, she grasped the child’s head under her arm, and 
rubbed the harsh mixture through her mouth with a vengeful 
energy. “There, now, see if you ’ll tell me another lie,” said she, 
pushing her from her. “Don’t you know where liars go to, you 
naughty, wicked girl? ‘All liars shall have their part in the 
lake that burns with fire and brimstone,’—that’s what the Bible 
says; and you may thank me for keeping you from going there. 
Now go and get up the potatoes and wash ’em, and don’t let me 
get another lie out of your mouth as long as you live.” 

There was a burning sense of shame—a smothered fury of 
resentment—in the child’s breast, and, as she took the basket, 
she felt as if she would have liked to do some mischief to Miss 
Asphyxia. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you,” she said to 

217 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


herself when she got into the cellar, and fairly out of hearing. “I 
hate you, and when I get to be a woman, I ’ll pay you for all 
this.” 

Miss Asphyxia, however, went on her way, in the testimony 
of a good conscience. She felt that she had been equal to the 
emergency, and had met a crisis in the most thorough and 
effectual manner. 

The teachers of district schools in those days often displayed 
a singular ingenuity in the invention of punishments by which 
the different vices of childhood should be repressed; and Miss 
Asphyxia’s housewifely confidence in soap and sand as a means 
of purification had suggested to her this expedient in her school¬ 
teaching days. “You can break any child o’ lying, right off 
short,” she was wont to say. “Jest scour their mouths out with 
soap and sand. They never want to try it more ’n once or twice, 
I tell you.” 

The intervals which the child had for play were, in Miss 
Asphyxia’s calendar, few and far between. Sometimes, 
when she had some domestic responsibility on her mind which 
made the watching of the child a burden to her, she would 
say to her, “You may go and play till I call you,” or, “You 
may play for half an hour; but you mustn’t go out of the 
yard.” 

• ••••• •• 

Miss Asphyxia did not hate the child, nor did she love her. 
She regarded her exactly as she did her broom and her rolling- 
pin and her spinning-wheel,—as an implement or instrument 
which she was to fashion to her uses. She had a general idea, 
too, of certain duties to her as a human being, which she ex¬ 
pressed by the phrase, “doing right by her,”—that is, to feed 
and clothe and teach her. In fact, Miss Asphyxia believed fully 
in the golden rule of doing as she would be done by; but if a 
lioness should do to a young lamb exactly as she would be done 
by, it might be all the worse for the lamb. 

218 


CHARACTERS 


ASSIGNMENT 

Write a theme on one of the following: 

An Obstinate Man 
A Woman with a Single-Track Mind 
The Housewife with an Aversion to Peddlers 
Living in a Straitjacket 

The Girl Who Made Everybody Do (Play) Her Way 
The Boy Who Was Always Bossy 

The Woman Who Prescribed to People How They Ought to Act 
The One Man Acquainted with the True Road to Heaven 
The Nosey Girl 

The Man Who Would n’t Mind His Own Business. 

ENGLISH MORALITY * 

George Bernard Shaw 

This selection illustrates ironic exposition of a dominant racial 
trait. The exposition is put into the mouth of Napoleon. 

I will explain the English to you. 

• • • • • • • • 

There are three sorts of people in the world, the low people, 
the middle people, and the high people. The low people and 
the high people are alike in one thing: they have no scruples, 
no morality. The low are beneath morality, the high above it. 
I am not afraid of either of them: for the low are unscrupulous 
without knowledge, so that they make an idol of me; whilst 
the high are unscrupulous without purpose, so that they go 
down before my will. Look you: I shall go over all the mobs 
and all the courts of Europe as a plough goes over a field. It 
is the middle people who are dangerous: they have both knowl¬ 
edge and purpose. But they, too, have their weak point. They 
are full of scruples—chained hand and foot by their morality 
and respectability. 

* From The Man of Destiny in Four Pleasant Plays. Reprinted by permission 
of Brentano’s. 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


. . . The English are a race apart. No Englishman is too 
low to have scruples: no Englishman is high enough to be free 
from their tyranny. But every Englishman is born with a 
certain miraculous power that makes him master of the world. 
When he wants a thing, he never tells himself that he wants it. 
He waits patiently until there comes into his mind, no one knows 
how, a burning conviction that it is his moral and religious 
duty to conquer those who have got the thing he wants. Then 
he becomes irresistible. Like the aristocrat, he does what pleases 
him and grabs what he wants: like the shopkeeper, he pursues 
his purpose with the industry and steadfastness that come from 
strong religious conviction and deep sense of moral responsibil¬ 
ity. He is never at a loss for an effective moral attitude. As the 
great champion of freedom and national independence, he con¬ 
quers and annexes half the world, and calls it Colonization. 
When he wants a new market for his adulterated Manchester 
goods, he sends a missionary to teach the natives the gospel of 
peace. The natives kill the missionary: he flies to arms in de¬ 
fence of Christianity; fights for it; conquers for it; and takes 
the market as a reward from heaven. In defence of his island 
shores, he puts a chaplain on board his ship; nails a flag with 
a cross on it to his top-gallant mast; and sails to the ends of 
the earth, sinking, burning and destroying all who dispute the 
empire of the seas with him. He boasts that a slave is free the 
moment his foot touches British soil; and he sells the children 
of his poor at six years of age to work under the lash in his 
factories for sixteen hours a day. He makes two revolutions, 
and then declares war on our one in the name of law and order. 
There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find the 
Englishmen doing it; but you will never find an Englishman 
in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you 
on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he 
enslaves you on imperial principles; he bullies you on manly 
principles; he supports his king on loyal principles, and cuts 


22 o 


CHARACTERS 


off his king’s head on republican principles. His watchword 
is always duty; and he never forgets that the nation which lets 
its duty get on the opposite side to its interest is lost. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Characterize a people in a theme on one of the following topics. 
Place the emphasis on that quality in those people which you regard 
as outstanding. Make your theme ironic if you wish, but it would 
be better to seek out good qualities or refute ill-founded opinions. 

What I Think of the Indians 

The Racial Group I Dislike Most 

The Racial Group I Admire Most 

Foreigners in General 

Foreigners of a Particular Nationality 

Some American Shortcomings. 

WITH WHAT CLASS OF MEN SHALL SHELLEY 

BE NUMBERED? * 

Edward Dowden 

This theme divides men into groups in order to classify an indi¬ 
vidual properly. 

In life and in literature there are three kinds of men to 
whom we give peculiar honor. The first are the craftsmen, who 
put true and exact work into all they offer to the world, and 
find their happiness in such faithful service. Such a crafts¬ 
man has been described with affectionate reverence by George 
Eliot in her poem “Stradivarius”:— 

“That plain, white-aproned man who stood at work, 

Patient and accurate, full fourscore years, 

Cherished his sight and touch by temperance; 

And since keen sense is love of perfectness 
Made perfect violins, the needed paths 
For inspiration and high mastery.” 

* From “Last Words on Shelley” in Transcripts and Studies. Reprinted by 
permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

221 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

We do not reckon Shelley among the craftsmen. The second 
class is small in numbers; we call these men conquerors, of 
whom, as seen in literature, the most eminent representatives in 
modern times have been Shakspere and Goethe. These are 
the masters of life; and having known joy and anguish, and 
labor and pleasure, and the mysteries of love and death, of evil 
and of good, they attain at last a lofty serenity upon heights 
from which they gaze down, with an interest that has in it 
something of exalted pity, on the turmoil and strife below. It 
is their part to bring into actual union, as far as our mortal 
life permits, what is real and what is ideal. They are at home 
in both worlds. Shakspere retires to Stratford, and enjoys 
the dignity and ease and happy activity of the life of an Eng¬ 
lish country gentleman; yet it was he who had wandered with 
Lear in the tempest, and meditated with Hamlet on the question 
of self-slaughter. Goethe, councillor to his noble master, the 
Grand-Duke of Weimar, in that house adorned with treasures 
of art and science, presides as an acknowledged chief over the 
intellectual life of a whole generation; yet he had known the 
storm and stress, had interpreted the feverish heart of his age 
in “Werther,” and all its spiritual doubts and desires and as¬ 
pirations in his “Faust.” Such men may well be named con¬ 
querors, and Shelley was not one of these. But how shall we 
name the third class of men, who live for the ideal alone, and 
yet are betrayed into weakness and error, and deeds which de¬ 
mand an atonement of remorse; men who can never quite recon¬ 
cile the two worlds in which we have our being, the world of 
material fact and the spiritual world above and beyond it; 
who give themselves away for love or give themselves away for 
light, yet sometimes mistake bitter for sweet, and darkness for 
light; children who stumble on the sharp stones and bruise their 
hands and feet, yet who can wing their way with angelic ease 
through spaces of the upper air. These are they whom we say 
the gods love, and who seldom reach the fourscore years of 

222 


CHARACTERS 


Goethe’s majestic old age. They are dearer perhaps than any 
others to the heart of humanity, for they symbolize in a pathetic 
way, both its weakness and its strength. We cannot class them 
with the exact and patient craftsmen; they are ever half defeated 
and can have no claim to take their seats beside the conquerors. 
Let us name them lovers; and if at any time they have wan¬ 
dered far astray, let us remember their errors with gentleness, 
because they have loved much. It is in this third class of those 
who serve mankind that Shelley has found a place. 


ASSIGNMENT 

I. In a theme on one of the following divide human beings into 
groups in order to classify the person properly: 


Some Historical Figure 
A Man in the Public Eye 
A Politician 
A Preacher 
A Teacher 

2 . Write a theme on 

Card-Indexing One’s Friends 
College Nicknames (as Placing 


A Workman 
An Employer 
An Athlete or Sportsman 
A Fraternity Man 
A Student. 


Students According to Types). 


THE OLD PRACTITIONER AND THE YOUNG* 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

This selection draws a contrast between typical figures in the same 
class or profession. 

May I venture to contrast youth and experience in medical 
practice, something in the way the man painted the lion, that 
is, the lion under? 

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows 
the exceptions. The young man knows his patient, but the 
old man knows also his patient’s family, dead and alive, up 

# From “The Young Practitioner” in Medical Essays. 

223 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


and down for generations. He can tell beforehand what diseases 
their unborn children will be subject to, what they will die of 
if they live long enough, and whether they had better live at all, 
or remain unrealized possibilities, as belonging to a stock not 
worth being perpetuated. The young man feels uneasy if he is 
not continually doing something to stir up his patient’s internal 
arrangements. The old man takes things more quietly, and 
is much more willing to let well enough alone. All these su¬ 
periorities, if such they are, you must wait for time to bring 
you. In the meanwhile (if w T e will let the lion be upp?rmost for 
a moment), the young man’s senses are quicker than those of 
his older rival. His education in all the accessory branches is 
more recent, and therefore nearer the existing condition of 
knowledge. He finds it easier than his seniors to accept the 
improvements which every year is bringing forward. New ideas 
build their nests in young men’s brains. “Revolutions are not 
made by men in spectacles,” as I once heard it remarked, and 
the first whispers of a new truth are not caught by those who 
begin to feel the need of an ear-trumpet. Granting all these 
advantages to the young man, he ought, nevertheless, to go 
on improving, on the whole, as a medical practitioner, with every 
year, until he has ripened into a well-mellowed maturity. But, 
to improve, he must be good for something at the start. If you 
ship a poor cask of wine to India and back, if you keep it a 
half a century, it only grows thinner and sharper. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Draw a contrast between the typical young member and the 
typical old member of one of these businesses or professions: 

Teaching Seamanship 

Law Commercial Agency 

Railroad Work Farming 

The Army Manufacturing 

The Branch of Business with Which You Are Most Familiar. 

2 . Draw the contrast between the friendly, easy-going, perhaps 

224 


CHARACTERS 


slovenly person and the aloof, energetic, letter-of-the-law person 
engaged in any sort of work that has to do with the public. 

3. Characterize (ironically if you wish) one of the following: 

The Class Bore 

The Swellhead 

The Girl with Soft-Spoken Malice 

The Oldest Old Veteran of All the Gossips 

The Man Who Does n’t Know When to Go Home 

That Angelic Youngster 

A “Nut” 

My Baby Brother. 

LAW AND LAWYERS* 

Jonathan Swift 

This selection constitutes a terrific onslaught upon a profession. 
Its method is ironic; the writer pretends that he is simply explaining 
or perhaps even defending the profession when in reality he is 
bringing forward all the damaging arguments he can against it. 

I assured his honor that law was a science wherein I had not 
much conversed, further than by employing advocates, in vain, 
upon some injustices that had been done me: however, I would 
give him all the satisfaction I was able. 

I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from 
their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the 
purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as 
they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are 
slaves. For example, if my neighbor has a mind to my cow, 
he hires a lawyer to prove that he ought to have my cow from me. 
I must then hire another to defend my right, it being against all 
rules of law that any man should be allowed to speak for him¬ 
self. Now in this case, I, who am the right owner, lie under 
two great disadvantages. First, my lawyer, being practised 
almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of 

* Gulliver’s Travels, Book IV, Chapter V. 

225 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


his element when he would be an advocate for justice, which 
is an office unnatural, he always attempts with great awkward¬ 
ness, if not with ill-will. The second disadvantage is, that 
my lawyer must proceed with great caution, or else he will be 
reprimanded by the judges, and abhorred by his brethren, as 
one that would lessen the practice of the law. And therefore I 
have but two methods to preserve my cow. The first is, to gain 
over my adversary’s lawyer with a double fee, who will then 
betray his client by insinuating that he has justice on his side. 
The second way is for my lawyer to make my cause appear as 
unjust as he can, by allowing the cow to belong to my adversary: 
and this, if it be skillfully done, will certainly bespeak the favor 
■of the bench. 

Now, your honor is to know that these judges are persons 
appointed to decide all controversies of property, as well as for 
the trial of criminals, and picked out from the most dexterous 
lawyers, w r ho are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all 
their lives against truth and equity, are under such a fatal 
necessity of favoring fraud, perjury, and oppression, that I have 
known several of them refuse a large bribe from the side where 
justice lay, rather than injure the faculty, by doing anything 
unbecoming their nature or their office. 

It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever has been 
done before may legally be done again; and therefore they take 
special care to record all the decisions formerly made against 
common justice, and the general reason of mankind. These, 
under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to 
justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail 
of directing accordingly. 

In pleading, they studiously avoided entering into the merits 
of the cause; but are loud, violent, and tedious in dwelling 
upon all circumstances which are not to the purpose. For in¬ 
stance, in the case already mentioned: they never desire to 
know what claim or title my adversary has to my cow; but 

226 


CHARACTERS 


whether the said cow was red or black; her horns long or short; 
whether the fields I grazed her in be round or square; whether 
she was milked at home or abroad; what diseases she is sub¬ 
ject to, and the like; after which they consult precedents, adjourn 
the cause from time to time, and in ten, twenty, or thirty years, 
come to an issue. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Write an ironic theme exposing some class or calling, or a 
serious theme setting forth abuses within that class or calling. 

2. Write a theme (ironic if you wish) on one of the following: 

The Type of People I Take To 

The Type of Lecturer I Like Best to Hear 

Human Parasites 

Children at the Self-Conscious Age 

A Plea for the Highbrow 

What I Know About Boys (for girls) 

What I Know About Girls (for boys) 

What I Wanted to Become When I Grew Up 
A Social (Industrial) Group I Failed to Understand. 

ASSIGNMENT FOR THE SECTION AS A WHOLE 

1. Bring to class a good short characterization from standard 
literature. 

2. Bring to class a good short characterization you have found 
in a newspaper or magazine. 

3. Write a theme on the subject: “Ways of Characterizing, and 
the Merits and Difficulties of Each.” 

4. Write a theme on one of the following: 

My Favorite Character in Imaginative Literature 
A Great Writer's Methods of Characterization (specify the writer) 

The Characters in - (a literary work) 

Faulty Characterization in - (some writer or work). 


227 



BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 

Nearly every one has had, at one time or another in his life, 
the opportunity to be a naturalist. This is true whether or 
not he has lived in the country, and whether or not his observa¬ 
tions have been scientific. The world of animal life is a varied 
and fascinating one; it may be studied on almost any scale, 
at almost any time, in almost any way; it embraces a multitude 
of matters which beguile any normal human being. It there¬ 
fore is a world from which many themes may be drawn—themes 
in which the writer is himself interested and has the assurance 
that his readers will be interested. 

In the study of the following selections you should observe 
whether the treatment is abstract or concrete, and what devices 
are employed to make facts and ideas clear and engaging. In 
your own themes you should draw as largely as possible upon 
your own experience—you should write about your pets, the 
animal life you have seen for yourself, and the things in nature 
which have enticed your attention, aroused your sympathy, or 
caused you to reflect. 

THE ROBIN * 

James Russell Lowell 

The return of the robin is commonly announced by the news¬ 
papers, like that of eminent or notorious people to a watering- 
place, as the first authentic notification of spring. And such 

* From “My Garden Acquaintance” in My Study Windows. 

228 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 

his appearance in the orchard and garden undoubtedly is. But, 
in spite of his name of migratory thrush, he stays with us all 
winter, and I have seen him when the thermometer marked 15 
degrees below zero of Fahrenheit, armed impregnably within, 
like Emerson’s Titmouse, and as cheerful- as he. The robin 
has a bad reputation among people who do not value them¬ 
selves less for being fond of cherries. There is, I admit, a 
spice of vulgarity in him, and his song is rather of the Bloom¬ 
field sort, too largely ballasted with prose. His ethics are of 
the Poor Richard school, and the main chance which calls forth 
all his energy is altogether of the belly. He never has those 
fine intervals of lunacy into which his cousins, the catbird and 
the mavis, are apt to fall. But for a’ that and twice as muckle’s 
a’ that, I would not exchange him for all the cherries that 
ever came out of Asia Minor. With whatever faults, he has 
not wholly forfeited that superiority which belongs to the chil¬ 
dren of nature. He has a finer taste in fruit than could be 
distilled from many successive committees of the Horticultural 
Society, and he eats with a relishing gulp not inferior to Dr. 
Johnson’s. He feels and freely exercises his right of eminent 
domain. His is the earliest mess of green peas; his all the mul¬ 
berries I had fancied mine. But if he get also the lion’s share 
of the raspberries, he is a great planter, and sows those wild 
ones in the woods, that solace the pedestrian and give a momen¬ 
tary calm even to the jaded victims of the White Hills. He 
keeps a strict eye over one’s fruit, and knows to a shade of purple 
when your grapes have cooked long enough in the sun. During 
the severe drought a few years ago, the robins wholly vanished 
from my garden. I neither saw nor heard one for three weeks. 
Meanwhile a small foreign grape-vine, rather shy of bearing, 
seemed to find the dusty air congenial, and, dreaming perhaps 
of its sweet Argos across the sea, decked itself with a score or so 
of fair bunches. I watched them from day to day till they 
should have secreted sugar enough from the sunbeams, and at 


220 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


last made up my mind that I would celebrate my vintage the 
next morning. But the robins too had somehow kept note of 
them. They must have sent out spies, as did the Jews into 
the promised land, before I was stirring. When 1 went with my 
basket, at least a dozen of these winged vintagers bustled out 
from among the leaves, and alighting on the nearest trees in¬ 
terchanged some shrill remarks about me of a derogatory nature. 
They had fairly sacked the vine. Not Wellington’s veterans 
made cleaner work of a Spanish town; not Federals or Con¬ 
federates were ever more impartial in the confiscation of neutral 
chickens. I was keeping my grapes a secret to surprise the 
fair Fidele with, but the robins made them a profounder secret 
to her than I had meant. The tattered remnant of a single 
bunch was all my harvest-home. How paltry it looked at the 
bottom of my basket,—as if a humming-bird had laid her egg in 
an eagle’s nest! I could not help laughing; and the robins 
seemed to join heartily in the merriment. There was a native 
grape-vine close by, blue with its less refined abundance, but 
my cunning thieves preferred the foreign flavor. Could I tax 
them with want of taste? 

The robins are not good solo singers, but their chorus, as, 
like primitive fire-worshippers, they hail the return of light and 
warmth to the world, is unrivalled. There are a hundred sing¬ 
ing like one. They are noisy enough then, and sing, as poets 
should, with no afterthought. But when they come after cherries 
to the tree near my window, they muffle their voices, and their 
faint pip, pip, pop! sounds far away at the bottom of the garden, 
where they know I shall not suspect them of robbing the great 
black-walnut of its bitter-rinded store. They are feathered 
Pecksniffs, to be sure, but then how brightly their breasts, that 
look rather shabby in the sunlight, shine in a rainy day against 
the dark green of the fringe-tree! After they have pinched 
and shaken all the life out of an earthworm, as Italian cooks 
pound all the spirit out of a steak, and then gulped him, they 

230 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 


stand up in honest self-confidence, expand their red waistcoats 
with the virtuous air of a lobby member, and outface you with 
an eye that calmly challenges inquiry. “Do I look like a bird 
that knows the flavor of raw vermin? I throw myself upon a 
jury of my peers. Ask any robin if he ever ate anything less 
ascetic than the frugal berry of the juniper, and he will answer 
that his vow forbids him.” Can such an open bosom cover such 
depravity? Alas, yes! I have no doubt his breast was redder 
at that very moment with the blood of my raspberries. On the 
whole, he is a doubtful friend in the garden. He makes his 
dessert of all kinds of berries, and is not averse from early 
pears. But when we remember how omnivorous he is, eating 
his own weight in an incredibly short time, and that Nature 
seems exhaustless in her invention of new insects hostile to 
vegetation, perhaps we may reckon that he does more good than 
harm. For my own part, I would rather have his cheerfulness 
and kind neighborhood than many berries. 

THE “DROPPING SONG” OF THE MOCKING-BIRD * 

Maurice Thompson 

Whoever has closely observed the bird has noted its “mount¬ 
ing song,” a very frequent performance, wherein the songster 
begins on the lowest branch of a tree and appears literally to 
mount on its music, from bough to bough, until the highest 
spray of the top is reached, where it will sit for many minutes 
flinging upon the air an ecstatic stream of almost infinitely 
varied vocalization. But he who has never heard the “dropping 
song” has not discovered the last possibility of the mocking¬ 
bird’s voice. I have never found any note of this extremely 
interesting habit of the bird by any ornithologist, a habit which 
is, I suspect, occasional, and connected with the most tender 

* By-Ways and Bird Notes, pages ii-i3- 

231 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


part of the mating season. It is, in a measure, the reverse of 
the “mounting song,” beginning where the latter leaves off. 
I have heard it but four times, when I was sure of it, during all 
my rambles and patient observations in the chosen haunts of 
the bird; once in North Georgia, twice in the immediate vicinity 
of Tallahassee, Florida, and once near the St. Mark’s River, 
as above mentioned. I have at several other times heard the 
song, as I thought, but not being able to see the bird, or clearly 
distinguish the peculiar notes, I cannot register these as cer¬ 
tainly correct. My attention was first called to this interesting 
performance by an aged negro man, who, being with me on 
an egg-hunting expedition, cried out one morning, as a burst 
of strangely rhapsodic music rang from a haw thicket near our 
extemporized camp, “Lis’n, mars, lis’n, dar, he’s a-droppin’; 
he’s a-droppin’, sho’s yo’ bo’n!” I could not see the bird, and 
before I could get my attention rightly fixed upon the song it 
had ended. 

Something of the rare aroma, so to speak, of the curiously 
modulated trills and quavers lingered in my memory, however, 
along with Lmcle Jo’s graphic description of the bird’s actions. 
After that I was on the lookout for an opportunity to verify the 
negro’s statements. 

I have not exactly kept the date of my first actual observa¬ 
tion, but it was late in April, or very early in May; for the 
crab-apple trees, growing wild in the Georgian hills, were in 
full bloom, and spring had come to stay. I had been out 
since the first sparkle of daylight. The sun was rising, and I 
had been standing quite still for some minutes, watching a 
mocking-bird that was singing in a snatchy, broken way, as it 
fluttered about in a thick-topped crab-apple tree thirty yards 
distant from me. Suddenly the bird, a fine specimen, leaped 
like a flash to the highest spray of the tree and began to flutter 
in a trembling, peculiar way, with its wings half-spread and its 
feathers puffed out. Almost immediately there came a strange, 

232 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 


gurgling series of notes, liquid and sweet, that seemed to ex¬ 
press utter rapture. Then the bird dropped, with a backward 
motion, from the spray, and began to fall slowly and somewhat 
spirally down through the bloom-covered boughs. Its progress 
was quite like that of a bird wounded to death by a shot, cling¬ 
ing here and there to a twig, quivering and weakly striking with 
its wings as it fell, but all the time it was pouring forth the 
most exquisite gushes and trills of song, not at all like its 
usual medley of improvised imitations but strikingly, almost 
startlingly, individual and unique. The bird appeared to be 
dying of an ecstasy of musical inspiration. The lower it fell 
the louder and more rapturous became its voice, until the song 
ended on the ground in a burst of incomparable vocal power. 
It remained for a short time, after its song was ended, crouch¬ 
ing where it had fallen, with its wings outspread, and quivering 
and panting as if utterly exhausted; then it leaped boldly into 
the air and flew away into an adjacent thicket. 

... I can half imagine what another ode Keats might have 
written had his eyes seen and his ears heard that strange, fas¬ 
cinating, dramatically rendered song. Or it might better have 
suited Shelley’s powers of expression. It is said that the 
grandest bursts of oratory are those which contain a strong trace 
of a reserve of power. This may be true; but is not the best 
song that wherein the voice sweeps, with the last expression 
of ecstasy, from wave to wave of music until with a supreme 
effort it wreaks its fullest power, thus ending in a victory over 
the final obstacle, as if with its utmost reach? Be this as it 
may, whoever may be fortunate enough to hear the mocking¬ 
bird’s “dropping song,” and at the same time see the bird’s 
action, will at once have the idea of genius, pure and simple, 
suggested to him. 


233 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


THE INIQUITY OF CAMELS * 

Amelia B. Edwards 

The camel has its virtues—so much at least must be ad¬ 
mitted; but they do not lie upon the surface. My Buff on tells 
me, for instance, that he carries a fresh-water cistern in his 
stomach; which is meritorious. But the cistern ameliorates 
neither his gait nor his temper—which are abominable. Irre¬ 
proachable as a beast of burden, he is open to many objections 
as a steed. It is unpleasant, in the first place, to ride an animal 
which not only objects to being ridden, but cherishes a strong 
personal antipathy to his rider. Such, however, is his amiable 
peculiarity. You know that he hates you, from the moment you 
first walk round him, wondering when and how to begin the 
ascent of his hump. He does not, in fact, hesitate to tell you so 
in the roundest terms. He swears freely while you are taking 
your seat; snarls if you but move in the saddle; and stares you 
angrily in the face if you attempt to turn his head in any direc¬ 
tion save that which he himself prefers. Should you persevere, 
he tries to bite your feet. If biting your feet does not answer, 
he lies down. 

Now the lying-down and getting-up of a camel are perform¬ 
ances designed for the express purpose of inflicting grievous 
bodily harm upon his rider. Thrown twice forward and twice 
backward, punched in his “wind” and damaged in his spine, 
the luckless novice receives four distinct shocks, each more 
violent and unexpected than the last. For this “execrable 
hunchback” is fearfully and wonderfully made. He has a 
superfluous joint somewhere in his legs and uses it to revenge 
himself upon mankind. 

His paces, however, are more complicated than his joints 
and more trying than his temper. He has four: a short walk, 

* A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, Chapter X. 

234 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 

like the rolling of a small boat in a chopping sea; a long walk, 
which dislocates every bone in your body; a trot that reduces 
you to imbecility; and a gallop that is sudden death. One tries 
in vain to imagine a crime for which the peine forte et dure 
of sixteen hours on camel-back would not be full and sufficient 
expiation. It is a punishment to which one would not willingly 
be the means of condemning any human being—not even a 
reviewer. 

AN ATTACK OF SHARKS UPON WHALES * 

Frederick O’Brien 

We had gone one morning about the southern cape, and were 
harpooning swordfish and the gigantic sunfish when a commo¬ 
tion a thousand feet away brought shouts of warning from my 
companions. We saw two whales, one with a baby at her 
breast. The other we took to be the father whale. Huge black 
beasts they were. Upon this mated pair a band of sharks had 
flung themselves to seize the infant. 

There were at least twenty-five sharks in the mad mob, great 
white monsters thirty feet in length, man-eaters by blood-taste, 
tigers in disposition. Though they could not compare with 
their prey in size or power, they had heads as large as barrels, 
and mouths that would drag a man through their terrible 
gaps. That their hunger was past all bounds was evident, for 
the whale is not often attacked by such inferior-sized fish. 
Storms had raged on the sea for days, and maybe had cheated 
the sharks of their usual food. 

They swam around and around the mountainous pair, darting 
in and out, evidently with some plan of drawing off the male. 
Both the whales struck out incessantly with their mammoth 
flukes; their great tails, crashing upon the sea-surface, lashed 
it to mountains of foam. Our boats tossed as in a gale 

* White Shadows in the South Seas, Chapter VIII. Reprinted by permission 
of the Century Co. 


235 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Carried away by the pity and terror of the scene, we shouted 
threats and curses at the monsters, calling down on them in 
Marquesan the wrath of the sea-gods. Frenziedly handling 
tiller and sails, we circled the battle, impotent to aid the poor 
woman-beast and her baby. The sharks harried them as hounds 
a fox. Desperately the parents fought, more than one shark 
sank wounded to the depths and one, turning its white belly 
to the sun, floated dead upon the waves. Another was flung 
high in the air by a blow of the mother’s tail. But it was an 
uneven contest. At last we saw the nursling drawn from her 
breast, and the mother herself sank, still struggling. She may 
have risen, of course, far away, but she seemed disabled. 

We did not wait about that bloody spot when the sharks 
had fallen upon their prey, for our canoe was low in the water, 
and with such a sight to warn us, we did not doubt that the 
loathly monsters w 7 ould attack us. 


ACCOUNT OF THE TREATMENT OF HIS HARES* 

William Cow per 

In the year 1774, being much indisposed both in mind and 
body, incapable of diverting myself either with company or 
books, and yet in a condition that made some diversion neces¬ 
sary, I was glad of anything that would engage my attention 
without fatiguing it. The children of a neighbor of mine had a 
leveret given them for a plaything; it was at that time about 
three months old. Understanding better how to tease the poor 
creature than to feed it, and soon becoming weary of their 
charge, they readily consented that their father, who saw it 
pining and growing leaner every day, should offer it for my 
acceptance. I was willing enough to take the prisoner under 
my protection, perceiving that, in the management of such an 

* From the Gentleman’s Magazine. 

236 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 


animal, and in the attempt to tame it, I should find just that 
sort of employment which my case required. It was soon known 
among the neighbors that I was pleased with the present; and 
the consequence was, that in a short time I had as many leverets 
offered to me as would have stocked a paddock. I undertook the 
care of three, which it is necessary that I should here distinguish 
by the names I gave them,—Puss, Tiney, and Bess. Notwith¬ 
standing the two feminine appellatives, I must inform you that 
they were all males. Immediately commencing carpenter, I built 
them houses to sleep in; each had a separate apartment, so 
contrived that their ordure would pass through the bottom of it; 
an earthen pan placed under each received whatsoever fell, 
which being duly emptied and washed, they were thus kept 
perfectly sweet and clean. In the daytime they had the range of 
a hall, and at night retired, each to his own bed, never intruding 
into that of another. 

Puss grew presently familiar, would leap into my lap, raise 
himself upon his hinder feet, and bite the hair from my temples. 
He would suffer me to take him up, and to carry him about in 
my arms, and has more than once fallen asleep upon my knee. 
He was ill three days, during which time I nursed him, kept him 
apart from his fellows, that they might not molest him (for, like 
many other wild animals, they persecute one of their own species 
that is sick), and by constant care, and trying him with a variety 
of herbs, restored him to perfect health. No creature could be 
more grateful than my patient after his recovery; a sentiment 
which he most significantly expressed by licking my hand, first 
the back of it, then the palm, then every finger separately, then 
between all the fingers, as if anxious to leave no part of it 
unsaluted; a ceremony which he never performed but once again 
upon a similar occasion. Finding him extremely tractable, I 
made it my custom to carry him always after breakfast into the 
garden, where he hid himself generally under the leaves of a 
cucumber vine, sleeping or chewing the cud till evening: in the 

237 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


leaves also of that vine he found a favorite repast. I had not 
long habituated him to this taste of liberty, before he began to 
be impatient for the return of the time when he might enjoy it. 
He would invite me to the garden by drumming upon my knee, 
and by a look of such expression as it was not possible to mis¬ 
interpret. If this rhetoric did not immediately succeed, he would 
take the skirt of my coat between his teeth, and pull at it with all 
his force. Thus Puss might be said to be perfectly tamed, the 
shyness of his nature was done away, and on the whole it was 
visible by many symptoms, which I have not room to enumerate, 
that he was happier in human society than when shut up with 
his natural companions. 

Not so Tiney; upon him the kindest treatment had not the 
least effect. He, too, was sick, and in his sickness had an equal 
share of my attention; but if after his recovery I took the liberty 
to stroke him, he would grunt, strike with his fore feet, spring 
forward, and bite. He was, however, very entertaining in his 
way; even his surliness was matter of mirth; and in his play he 
preserved such an air of gravity, and performed his feats with 
such a solemnity of manner, that in him, too, I had an agreeable 
companion. 

Bess, who died soon after he was full grown and whose death 
was occasioned by his being turned into his box, which had been 
washed, while it was yet damp, was a hare of great humor and 
drollery. Puss was tamed by gentle usage! Tiney was not to 
be tamed at all: and Bess had a courage and confidence that 
made him tame from the beginning. I always admitted them 
into the parlor after supper, when the carpet affording their feet 
a firm hold they would frisk and bound and play a thousand 
gambols, in which Bess, being remarkably strong and fearless, 
was always superior to the rest, and proved himself the Vestris 
of the party. One evening the cat, being in the room, had the 
hardiness to pat Bess upon the cheek, an indignity which he 
resented by drumming upon her back with such violence that 

238 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 

the cat was happy to escape from under his paws, and hide 
herself. 

I describe these animals as having each a character of his 
own. Such they were in fact, and their countenances were so 
expressive of that character, that, when I looked only on the 
face of either, I immediately knew which it was. It is said that 
a shepherd, however numerous his flock, soon becomes so familiar 
with their features, that he can by that indication only, distin¬ 
guish each from all the rest; and yet, to a common observer, the 
difference is hardly perceptible. I doubt not that the same 
discrimination in the cast of countenances would be discoverable 
in hares, and am persuaded that among a thousand of them, no 
two could be found exactly similar; a circumstance little sus¬ 
pected by those who have not had opportunity to observe it. 
These creatures have a singular sagacity in discovering the 
minutest alteration that is made in the place to which they are 
accustomed, and instantly apply their nose to the examination 
of the new object. A small hole being burnt in the carpet, it 
was mended with a patch, and that patch in a moment under¬ 
went the strictest scrutiny. They seem, too, to be very much 
directed by the smell in the choice of their favorites; to some 
persons, though they saw them daily, they could never be recon¬ 
ciled, and would even scream when they attempted to touch 
them; but a miller coming in engaged their affections at once: 
his powdered coat had charms that were irresistible. It is no 
wonder that my intimate acquaintance with these specimens of 
the kind has taught me to hold the sportsman’s amusement in 
abhorrence: he little knows what amiable creatures he persecutes, 
of what gratitude they are capable, how cheerful they are in their 
spirits, what enjoyment they have of life, and that, impressed as 
they seem with a peculiar dread of man, it is only because man 
gives them peculiar cause for it. 

That I may not be tedious, I will just give a short summary of 
those articles of diet that suit them best. 


239 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


I take it to be a general opinion that they graze, but it is an 
erroneous one; at least grass is not their staple; they seem rather 
to use it medicinally, soon quitting it for leaves of almost any 
kind. Sowthistle, dandelion, and lettuce, are their favorite 
vegetables, especially the last. I discovered by accident that 
fine white sand is in great estimation with them; I suppose as a 
digestive. It happened that I was cleaning a bird cage while the 
hares were with me: I placed a pot filled with such sand upon 
the floor, which, being at once directed by a strong instinct, they 
devoured voraciously; since that time I have generally taken 
care to see them well supplied with it. They account green corn 
a delicacy, both blade and stalk, but the ear they seldom eat; 
straw of any kind, especially wheat straw, is another of their 
dainties; they will feed greedily upon oats, but if furnished with 
clean straw, never want them: it serves them also for a bed, and 
if shaken up daily, will be kept sweet and dry for a considerable 
time. They do not indeed require aromatic herbs, but will eat a 
small quantity of them with a great relish, and are particularly 
fond of the plant called musk: they seem to resemble sheep in 
this, that if their pasture be too succulent, they are very subject 
to the rot; to prevent which, I always made bread their principal 
nourishment, and, filling a pan with it cut into small squares, 
placed it every evening in their chambers, for they feed only at 
evening, and in the night; during the winter, when vegetables 
were not to be procured, I mingled this mess of bread with 
shreds of carrots, adding to it the rind of apples cut extremely 
thin; for, though they are fond of the paring, the apple itself 
disgusts them. These, however, not being a sufficient substitute 
for the juice of summer herbs, they must at this time be supplied 
with water; but so placed, that they cannot overset it into their 
beds. I must not omit, that occasionally they are much pleased 
with twigs of hawthorn and of the common brier, eating even the 
very wood when it is of considerable thickness. 

Bess, I have said, died young; Tiney lived to be nine years 

240 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 


old, and died at last, I have reason to think, of some hurt in his 
loins by a fall: Puss is still living, and has just completed his 
tenth year, discovering no signs of decay, nor even of age, except 
that he is grown more discreet and less frolicsome than he was. 

I cannot conclude without observing, that I have lately intro¬ 
duced a dog to his acquaintance—a spaniel that had never seen 
a hare, to a hare that had never seen a spaniel. I did it with 
great caution, but there was no real need of it. Puss discovered 
no token of fear, nor Marquis the least symptom of hostility. 
There is, therefore, it would seem, no natural antipathy between 
dog and hare, but the pursuit of the one occasions the flight of 
the other, and the dog pursues because he is trained to it; they 
eat bread at the same time out of the same hand, and are in all 
respects sociable and friendly. 

I should not do complete justice to my subject, did I not add, 
that they have no ill scent belonging to them; that they are 
indefatigably nice in keeping themselves clean, for which pur¬ 
pose nature has furnished them with a brush under each foot; . 
and that they are never infested by any vermin. 

May 28, 1784. 

MEMORANDUM FOUND AMONG MR. COWPER’s PAPERS. 

Tuesday, March 9, 1786. 

This day died poor Puss, aged eleven years eleven months. 
He died between twelve and one at noon, of mere old age, and 
apparently without pain. 

THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL * 

John Muir 

All the true squirrels are more or less birdlike in speech and 
movements; but the Douglas is preeminently so, possessing, as 

* The Mountains of California, Chapter IX. Reprinted by permission of 
the Century Co. 


241 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


he does, every attribute peculiarly squirrelish enthusiastically 
concentrated. He is the squirrel of squirrels, flashing from 
branch to branch of his favorite evergreens crisp and glossy and 
undiseased as a sunbeam. Give him wings and he would outfly 
any bird in the woods. His big gray cousin is a looser animal, 
seemingly light enough to float on the wind; yet when leaping 
from limb to limb, or out of one treetop to another, he sometimes 
halts to gather strength, as if making efforts concerning the 
upshot of which he does not always feel exactly confident. But 
the Douglas, with his denser body, leaps and glides in hidden 
strength, seemingly as independent of common muscles as a 
mountain stream. He threads the tasseled branches of the 
pines, stirring their needles like a rustling breeze; now shooting 
across openings in arrowy lines; now launching in curves, glint¬ 
ing deftly from side to side in sudden zigzags, and swirling in 
giddy loops and spirals around the knotty trunks; getting into 
what seem to be the most impossible situations without sense 
. of danger; now on his haunches, now on his head; yet ever 
graceful, and punctuating his most irrepressible outbursts of 
energy with little dots and dashes of perfect repose. He is, with¬ 
out exception, the wildest animal I ever saw,—a fiery, sputter¬ 
ing little bolt of life, luxuriating in quick oxygen and the woods’ 
best juices. One can hardly think of such a creature being de¬ 
pendent, like the rest of us, on climate and food. But, after 
all, it requires no long acquaintance to learn he is human, for 
he works for a living. His busiest time is in the Indian summer. 
Then he gathers burs and hazelnuts like a plodding farmer, 
working continuously every day for hours; saying not a word; 
cutting off the ripe cones at the top of his speed, as if employed 
by the job, and examining every branch in regular order, as if 
careful that not one should escape him; then, descending, he 
stores them away beneath logs and stumps, in anticipation of the 
pinching hunger days of winter. He seems himself a kind of 

242 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 


coniferous fruit,—both fruit and flower. The resiny essences 
of the pines pervade every pore of his body, and eating his flesh 
is like chewing gum. 

One never tires of this bright chip of nature,—this brave 
little voice crying in the wilderness,—of observing his many 
works and ways, and listening to his curious language. His 
musical, piny gossip is as savory to the ear as balsam to the 
palate; and, though he has not exactly the gift of song, some of 
his notes are as sweet as those of a linnet—almost flute-like in 
softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles. He is the 
mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed chatter and song 
like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog, screaming like 
a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while in bluff, 
audacious noisiness he is a very jay. 

In descending the trunk of a tree with the intention of 
alighting on the ground, he preserves a cautious silence, mind¬ 
ful, perhaps, of foxes and wildcats; but while rocking safely 
at home in the pine-tops there is no end to his capers and noise; 
and woe to the gray squirrel or chipmunk that ventures to set 
foot on his favorite tree! No matter how slyly they trace the 
furrows of the bark, they are speedily discovered, and kicked 
down-stairs with comic vehemence, while a torrent of angry 
notes comes rushing from his whiskered lips that sounds remark¬ 
ably like swearing. He will even attempt at times to drive 
away dogs and men, especially if he has had no previous 
knowledge of them. Seeing a man for the first time, he ap¬ 
proaches nearer and nearer, until within a few feet; then, with 
an angry outburst, he makes a sudden rush, all teeth and eyes, 
as if about to eat you up. But, finding that the big, forked 
animal does n’t scare, he prudently beats a retreat, and sets 
himself up to reconnoiter on some overhanging branch, scrutiniz¬ 
ing every movement you make with ludicrous solemnity. Gath¬ 
ering courage, he ventures down the trunk again, churring and 

243 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


chirping, and jerking nervously up and down in curious loops, 
eyeing you all the time, as if showing off and demanding your 
admiration. Finally, growing calmer, he settles down in a 
comfortable posture on some horizontal branch commanding a 
good view, and beats time with his tail to a steady “Chee-up! 
chee-up!” or, when somewhat less excited, “Pee-ah!” with the 
first syllable keenly accented, and the second drawn out like 
the scream of a hawk,—repeating this slowly and more em¬ 
phatically at first, then gradually faster, until a rate of about 
150 words a minute is reached; usually sitting all the time on 
his haunches, with paws resting on his breast, which pulses 
visibly with each word. It is remarkable, too, that, though 
articulating distinctly, he keeps his mouth shut most of the time, 
and speaks through his nose. I have occasionally observed him 
even eating Sequoia seeds and nibbling a troublesome flea, 
without ceasing or in any way confusing his “Pee-ah! pee-ah!’’' 
for a single moment. 

While ascending trees all his claws come into play, but in 
descending the weight of his body is sustained chiefly by those 
of the hind feet; still in neither case do his movements suggest 
effort, though if you are near enough you may see the bulging 
strength of his short, bear-like arms, and note his sinewy fists 
clinched in the bark. 

Whether going up or down, he carries his tail extended at 
full length in line with his body, unless it be required for ges¬ 
tures. But while running along horizontal limbs or fallen 
trunks, it is frequently folded forward over the back, with the 
airy tip daintily upcurled. In cool weather it keeps him warm, 
d hen, after he has finished his meal, you may see him crouched 
close on some level limb with his tail-robe neatly spread and 
reaching forward to his ears, the electric, outstanding hairs 
quivering in the breeze like pine-needles. But in wet or very 
cold weather he stays in his nest, and while curled up there his 
comforter is long enough to come forward around his nose. 

244 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 

It is seldom so cold, however, as to prevent his going out to his 
stores when hungry. 

*••••••• 

Though I cannot of course expect all my readers to sym¬ 
pathize fully in my admiration of this little animal, few, I hope, 
will think this sketch of his life too long. I cannot begin to 
tell here how much he has cheered my lonely wanderings during 
all the years I have been pursuing my studies in these glorious 
wilds; or how much unmistakable humanity I have found in 
him. Take this for example: One calm, creamy Indian 
summer morning, when the nuts were ripe, I was camped in 
the upper pinewoods of the south fork of the San Joaquin, 
where the squirrels seemed to be about as plentiful as the ripe 
burs. They were taking an early breakfast before going to their 
regular harvest-work. While I was busy with my own break¬ 
fast I heard the thudding fall of two or three heavy cones from 
a Yellow Pine near me. I stole noiselessly forward within about 
twenty feet of the base of it to observe. In a few moments down 
came the Douglas. The breakfast-burs he had cut off had rolled 
on the gently sloping ground into a clump of ceanothus bushes, 
but he seemed to know exactly where they were, for he found 
them at once, apparently without searching for them. They 
were more than twice as heavy as himself, but after turning them 
into the right position for getting a good hold with his long 
sickle-teeth he managed to drag them up to the foot of the 
tree from which he had cut them, moving backward. Then 
seating himself comfortably, he held them on end, bottom up, 
and demolished them at his ease. A good deal of nibbling had 
to be done before he got anything to eat, because the lower 
scales are barren, but when he had patiently worked his wa7 
up to the fertile ones he found two sweet nuts at the base of 
each, shaped like trimmed hams, and spotted purple like bi/rds’ 
eggs. And notwithstanding these cones were dripping witlh soft 
balsam, and covered with prickles, and so strongly put together 

245 

/ 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


that a boy would be puzzled to cut them open with a jackknife, 
he accomplished his meal with easy dignity and cleanliness, 
making less effort apparently than a man would in eating soft 
cookery from a plate. 

Breakfast done, I whistled a tune for him before he went 
to work, curious to see how he would be affected by it. He had 
not seen me all this while; but the instant I began to whistle he 
darted up the tree nearest to him, and came out on a small dead 
limb opposite me, and composed himself to listen. I sang and 
whistled more than a dozen airs, and as the music changed his 
eyes sparkled, and he turned his head quickly from side to side, 
but made no other response. Other squirrels, hearing the strange 
sounds, came around on all sides, also chipmunks and birds. 
One of the birds, a handsome, speckle-breasted thrush, seemed 
even more interested than the squirrels. After listening for 
awhile on one of the lower dead sprays of a pine, he came swoop¬ 
ing forward within a few feet of my face, and remained flutter¬ 
ing in the air for half a minute or so, sustaining himself with 
whirring wing-beats, like a humming-bird in front of a flower, 
while I could look into his eyes and see his innocent wonder. 

By this time my performance must have lasted nearly half 
an hour. I sang or whistled “Bonnie Doon,” “Lass o’ Gowrie,” 
“O’er the Water to Charlie,” “Bonnie Woods o’ Cragie Lee,” 
etc., all of which seemed to be listened to with bright interest, 
my first Douglas sitting patiently through it all, with his telling 
eyes fixed upon me until I ventured to give the “Old Hun¬ 
dredth,” when he screamed his Indian name, Phillillooeet, 
turned tail, and darted with ludicrous haste up the tree out of 
Wght, his voice and actions in the case leaving a somewhat pro- 
fkme impression, as if he had said, “I’ll be hanged if you get 
me\, to hear anything so solemn and unpiny.” This acted as a 
signal for the general dispersal of the whole hairy tribe, though 
the bl\ r ds seemed willing to wait further developments, music 
being iWaturally more in their line. 

246 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 


What there can be in that grand old church-tune that is so 
offensive to birds and squirrels I can’t imagine. A year or 
two after this High Sierra concert, I was sitting one fine day 
on a hill in the Coast Range where the common Ground Squir¬ 
rels were abundant. They were very shy on account of being 
hunted so much; but after I had been silent and motionless for 
half an hour or so they began to venture out of their holes and 
to feed on the seeds of the grasses and thistles around me as 
if I were no more to be feared than a tree-stump. Then it 
occurred to me that this was a good opportunity to find out 
whether they also disliked “Old Hundredth.” Therefore I 
began to whistle as nearly as I could remember the same familiar 
airs that had pleased the mountaineers of the Sierra. They 
at once stopped eating, stood erect, and listened patiently until 
I came to “Old Hundredth,” when with ludicrous haste every 
one of them rushed to their holes and bolted in, their feet 
twinkling in the air for a moment as they vanished. 

No one who makes the acquaintance of our forester will fail 
to admire him; but he is far too self-reliant and warlike ever 
to be taken for a darling. 

THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE BLACK AND 

THE RED ANTS * 

H. D. Thoreau 

I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One 
day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of 
stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much 
larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending 
with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, 
but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. 
Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were 
covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but 


* Walden, Chapter XII 


247 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

a helium, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted 
against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. 
The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales 
in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the 
dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle 
which I have ever witnessed, the only batttle-field I ever trod 
while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republi¬ 
cans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. 
On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without 
any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought 
so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each 
other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at 
noon-day prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went 
out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a 
vice to his adversary’s front, and through all the tumblings on 
that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his 
feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go 
by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from 
side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already 
divested him of several of his members. They fought with 
more pertinacity than bull-dogs. Neither manifested the least 
disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was 
Conquer or die. In the mean while there came along a single 
red ant on the hill-side of this valley, evidently full of excite¬ 
ment, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken 
part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of 
his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his 
shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had 
nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or 
rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar,— 
for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red,—he drew 
near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an 
inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he 
sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations 

248 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 


near the root of his right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select 
among his own members; and so there were three united for) 
life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put 
all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have won¬ 
dered by this time to find that they had their respective musical 
bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their na¬ 
tional airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying com¬ 
batants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had 
been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. 
And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, 
at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s 
comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, 
or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and 
for courage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! 
Two killed on the patriots’ side, and Luther Blanchard 
wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick,—“Fire! for 
God’s sake, fire!” and thousands shared the fate of Davis 
and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have no 
doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our 
ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and 
the results of this battle will be as important and memorable 
to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, 
at least. 

I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly de¬ 
scribed were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed 
it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in order to see the 
issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, 
I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near 
fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his 
own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there 
to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breast-plate was ap¬ 
parently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles 
of the sufferer’s eyes shone with a ferocity such as war only 
could excite. They struggled half an hour longer under the 

24Q 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


tumbler, and when I looked again the black soldier had severed 
the heads of his foes from their bodies, and the still living 
heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies 
at his saddle-bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, 
and he was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without 
feelers and with only the remnant of a leg, and I know not 
how many other wounds, to divest himself of them; which at 
length, after half an hour more, he accomplished. I raised the 
glass, and he went off over the window-sill in that crippled 
state. Whether he finally survived that combat and spent the 
remainder of his days in some Hotel des Invalides, I do not 
know; but I thought that his industry would not be worth much 
thereafter. I never learned which party was victorious, nor the 
cause of the war; but I felt for the rest of that day as if I 
had had my feelings excited and harrowed by witnessing the 
struggle, the ferocity and carnage, of a human battle before my 
door. 

THE SUCCESSION TO THE QUEENSHIP AMONG 

BEES* 

Henri Fabre 

In this selection a student of nature is talking to young auditors. 

“For the larvae that are to discharge the functions of royalty 
the nurses prepare a special pap, a royal dish of which only they 
know the secret. Whoever eats of it is consecrated queen. 

“This strengthening nourishment brings about a greater de¬ 
velopment than usual; for that reason, as I told you, the larvae 
destined for royalty are lodged in spacious cells. For these 
noble cradles wax is used with prodigality. No more hex¬ 
agonal, parsimonious forms, no thin partitions; a large and 
sumptuously thick thimble. Economy is silent where queens 
are concerned.” 

* The Story Book of Science, pages 396-400. Reprinted by permission of the 
Century Co. 


250 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 


“It is, then, without the actual queen’s knowledge that bees 
make other queens?” 

“Yes, my friend. The queen is excessively jealous, she cannot 
endure in the hive any bee whose presence may bring the slight¬ 
est diminution to her royal prerogatives. Woe to the pretenders 
that should get in her way! ‘Ah I you come to supplant me, 
to steal from me the love of my subjects!’ Ah, this! Ah, that! 
It would be something horrible, my children. Read the history 
of mankind, and you will see what disasters crowned heads, 
brought to bay, can inflict upon nations. But the working- 
bees are strong-minded, they know that nothing lasts in this 
world, not even queens. They treat the reigning sovereign with 
the greatest respect, without losing sight of the future, which 
demands other queens. They must have them to perpetuate the 
race; they will have them, whether or no. To this end the 
royal pap is served to the larvae in the large cells. 

“Now, in the spring, when the working-bees and drones are 
already hatched, a loud rustling is heard in the royal cells. 
They are the young queens trying to get out of their wax 
prisons. The nurses and wax-bees are there, standing guard in 
a dense battalion. They keep the young queens in their cells 
by force; to prevent their getting out, they reinforce the wax 
inclosures, they mend the broken covers. ‘It is not time for you 
to show yourselves,’ they seem to say; ‘there is danger!’ And 
very respectfully they resort to violence. Impatient, the young 
queens renew their rustling. 

“The queen-mother has heard them. She hastens up in a 
passion. She stamps with rage on the royal cells, she sends 
pieces of the wax covers flying and, dragging the pretenders from 
their cells, she pitilessly tears them to pieces. Several succumb 
under her blows; but the people surround her, encircle her 
closely, and little by little draw her away from the scene of 
carnage. The future is saved: there are still some queens left. 

“In the meantime wrath is excited and civil war breaks out. 

251 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Some lean to the old queen, others to the young ones. In this 
conflict of opinions disorder and tumult succeed to peaceful ac¬ 
tivity. The hive is filled with menacing buzzings, the well-filled 
store-houses are given over to pillage. There is an orgy of 
feasting with no thought of the morrow. Dagger-thrusts are ex¬ 
changed. The queen decides on a master-stroke: she abandons 
the ungrateful country, the country that she founded and that 
now raises up rivals against her. ‘Let them that love me follow 
me!’ And behold her proudly rushing out of the hive, never to 
enter it again. Her partizans fly away with her. The emi¬ 
grating troop forms a swarm, which goes forth to found a new 
colony elsewhere. 

“To restore order, the working-bees that were away during 
the tumult come and join the bees left in the hive. Two young 
queens set up their rights. Which of them shall reign ? A duel 
to the death shall decide it. They come out of their cells. 
Hardly have they caught sight of each other when they join 
in shock of battle, rear upright, seize with their mandibles each 
an antenna of the other, and hold themselves head to head, 
breast to breast. In this position, each would only have to 
bend the end of its stomach a little to plunge its poisoned sting 
into its rival’s body. But that would be a double death, and their 
instinct forbids them a mode of assault in which both would 
perish. They separate and retire. But the people gathered 
around them prevent their getting away: one of them must suc¬ 
cumb. The two queens return to the attack. The more skil¬ 
ful one, at a moment when the other is off guard, jumps on its 
rival’s back, seizes it where the wing joins the body, and stings 
it in the side. The victim stretches its legs and dies. All is 
over. Royal unity is restored, and the hive proceeds to resume 
its accustomed order and work.” 

“The bees are very naughty to force the queens to kill one 
another until there is only one left,” commented Emile. 

252 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 

“It is necessary, my little friend; their instinct demands it. 
Otherwise civil war would rage unceasingly in the hive. But 
this hard necessity does not make them forget for one moment 
the respect due to royal dignity. What is to prevent their 
getting rid of the superfluous queens themselves, even as they 
so unceremoniously get rid of the drones? But this they are 
very careful not to do. What one of their number would dare 
to draw the sword against their sovereigns, even when they are 
a serious encumbrance? The saving of life not being in their 
power, they save honor by letting the pretenders fight it out 
among themselves. 

“There is always the possibility that the queen at a time 
when she is reigning alone and supreme may perish by accident 
or die of old age. The bees press respectfully around the de¬ 
ceased; they brush her tenderly, offer her honey as if to revive 
her; turn her over, feel her lovingly, and treat her with all the 
regard they gave to her when alive. It takes several days for 
them to understand, at last, that she is dead, quite dead, and 
that their attentions are useless. Then there is general mourn¬ 
ing. Every evening for two or three days a lugubrious humming, 
a sort of funeral dirge, is heard in the hive. 

“The mourning over, they think about replacing the queen. 
A young larva is chosen from those in the common cells. It was 
born to be a wax-bee, but circumstances are going to confer 
royalty upon it. The working-bees begin by destroying the 
cells adjacent to the one occupied by the sacred larva, the queen 
that is to be by unanimous consent. The rearing of royalty re¬ 
quires more space. This being secured, the remaining cell is 
enlarged and shaped like a thimble, as willed by the high 
destiny of the nursling it contains. For several days the larva 
is fed with royal paste, that sugary pap that makes queens, 
and the miracle is accomplished. The queen is dead, long live 
the queen!” 


253 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


THE BEE FEEDS AN IMPOSTOR* 

Alphonse Karr 

To test whether this selection arouses your interest, stop reading 
at the end of the eighth paragraph. Is it easy to leave off? Do 
you wish to read more? 

The little wren is not the only guest at my old house. You 
perceive between the joists, the intervals are filled up with rough 
stones and plaster. On the front, which is exposed to the south, 
there is a hole into which you could not thrust a goose-quill; and 
yet it is a dwelling: there is a nest within it, belonging to a 
sort of bee, w 7 ho lives a solitary life. Look at her, returning 
home with her provisions; her hind feet are loaded with a 
yellow 7 dust, which she has taken from the stamens of flow 7 ers: 
she goes into the hole; when she comes out again there will be 
no pollen on her feet; with honey, which she has brought, she 
will make a savory paste of it at the bottom of her nest. This 

is, perhaps, her tenth journey to-day, and she shows no inclina¬ 
tion to rest. 

All these cares are for one egg which she has laid; for a single 
egg which she will never see hatched; besides, that which will 
issue from that egg, will not be a fly like herself, but a worm, 
which will not be metamorphosed into a fly for some time after¬ 
wards. 

She has, however, hidden it in that hole, and knows pre¬ 
cisely how much nourishment it will require before it arrives 
at the state which ushers in its transformation into a fly. This 
nourishment she goes to seek, and she seasons and prepares 

it. There, she is gone again! 

But w 7 hat is this other brilliant little fly winch is walking 
upon the house wall? Her breast is green, and her abdomen 
is of a purple red; but these tw r o colors are so brilliant, that 

* From A Tour Round My Garden. 

254 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 

I am really at a loss to find words splendid enough to express 
them, but the names of an emerald and a ruby joined together. 

That pretty fly—that living jewel—is the “chrysis.” I 
scarcely dare breathe, for fear of making it fly away. I should 
like to take it in my hands, that I might have sufficient time to 
examine it more closely. This likewise is the mother of a 
family; she also has an egg to lay, from which will issue a fly 
like herself, but which she will never see. She also knows 
how much nourishment her offspring will require; but, more 
richly clothed than the bee, she does not, like her, know how 
to gather the pollen from flowers, or to make a paste of it with 
honey. 

She has but one resource, and that resource she is determined 
to employ—she will neither recoil from roguery nor theft to 
secure the subsistence of her offspring; she has recognized the 
solitary bee, and she is going to lay her egg in her nest: it will 
hatch sooner than that of the true proprietor; then the in¬ 
truder will eat the provisions so painfully collected for the 
legitimate child, who, when it is hatched in its turn, will have 
nothing to do but to die of hunger. 

There she is at the edge of the hole—she hesitates—she de¬ 
cides—she enters. 

This insect interests me, she is so beautiful! The other 
likewise interests me, she is so industrious! But, here she 
comes back through the air: one would think her a warrior 
covered with chased armor and a golden cuirass; she buzzes as 
she comes along. The chrysis has heard the buzzing, which is 
for her the terrible sound of a war trumpet. She wishes to fly; 
she comes out; but the other, justly irritated, pounces upon the 
daring intruder, beating it with her head. She bruises and tears 
the brilliant gauze of her wings, and beats her down to the dust, 
where she falls stupefied and inanimate. 

The bee then enters into her nest, and deposits and prepares 
her provisions; but, still agitated with her combat and her vic- 

255 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


tory, she sets out again through the air. I follow her with my 
eyes for a long time, and at last she disappears. 

The poor chrysis is not, however, dead: she gets up again, 
shakes herself, flutters, and attempts to fly; but her lacerated 
wings will no longer support her. What can she do to escape the 
fury of her enemy? It is not her business to fly away; her busi¬ 
ness is to deposit her egg in the bee’s nest, and to secure future 
provision for her offspring, but the bee came back too soon. 
She ascends, climbing painfully: at times her strength seems 
to fail her; she is forced to stop, but at last she arrives—she 
enters—she is in! This time the interest is for her. Just now 
she was only beautiful, now she is very unfortunate. I am aware 
that a long plea might be made for the other. I should not like 
to be appointed judge between them. Ah! she is out again— 
she flies away! But oh, how happy she is to have succeeded! 
Now I begin to feel for the bee. The poor bee continues to 
bring provisions for its young, which, nevertheless, will die of 
hunger. 

LIFE ON A ROSEBUSH * 

Alphonse Karr 

But what emerald is that concealed in the heart of that 
rose? The emerald is living: it is a cetonia; it is a flat, square 
insect, with hard wings, like those of a cockchafer, and brilliant 
as a precious stone. Turn it up: its under side is of a still more 
beautiful color; it is another precious stone, more violet than the 
ruby, more red than the amethyst. The cetonia, or rose-beetle, 
lives scarcely anywhere but in roses. A rose is its house and 
its bed. It feeds on roses. When it has eaten its house, it flies 
away in search of another, but it prefers white roses to all the 
rest. If by chance you find it upon another rose, which is rarely 
the case, neither its abode nor its bed are to its mind. It would 
inspire you with the same pity that you would feel for a ruined 

* From A Tour Round My Garden. 

256 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 


banker, obliged to dwell in the fourth story, and to eat soup 
and bouilli, as his only banquet. It feels sad and humiliated 
by it; but still, breathing creatures must live. There are people 
who resign themselves to a worse fate than this. 

At the extremities of the young shoots of the rose-tree are 
myriads of very small insects, of a reddish green, which en¬ 
tirely cover the branch, and seem motionless: they are aphides 
or vine-fretters, which are born within a line or two of the 
place where they now are, and which never venture to travel one 
inch in the course of their lives. They have a little proboscis, 
which they plunge into the epidermis of the branch, and by 
means of which they suck certain juices which nourish them. 
They will not eat the rose-tree. There are more than five hun¬ 
dred assembled upon one inch of the branch, and neither foliage 
nor branch seems to suffer much. . . . 

All enjoy a life sufficiently calm. You scarcely ever see 
an insect of this kind who is vagabond enough to pass from one 
branch to another. They sometimes go so far as to make the 
tour of the branch they dwell upon; but everything leaves us 
to believe that this is only done in the effervescence of ill- 
regulated youth, or under the empire of some passion. These 
outbreaks are extremely rare. Some of these aphides, however, 
have wings; but these wings only come at a ripe age, and 
they do not abuse them. The only serious care that seems 
to occupy the life of the aphis, is the changing of its clothes. 
It changes its skin, in fact, four times before it becomes a 
perfect aphis; something like us men who try on two or three 
characters before we fix upon one, although in general, we 
preserve three during our whole lives: one which we exhibit; 
one which we fancy we have; and another which we really have. 

When the aphides have finished changing their skins, there 
only remains one duty to fulfil, which is to multiply their 
species; but they take very little heed about that: they have 
not, as quadrupeds have, to suckle their young—as birds, to 

257 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


hatch their eggs—or, as other insects, to enclose them in a 
cavern with necessary aliments. The aphis produces its little 
ones whilst sucking its branch; and it never turns round to 
look at the offspring it has given birth to. If the mother 
shows but little anxiety for the little one, the little one only 
returns the same amount of filial love that it has received of 
maternal love. It sets out, descends below the rest, takes its 
rank, and plunges its little trunk into the green skin of the 
rose-tree. There issue thus about a hundred from a single 
mother, who all fall in regularly below their predecessors, and 
begin to eat. In ten or eleven days they change their skins 
four times; on the twelfth day, in their turn, they begin to pro¬ 
duce little ones who take their rank, and themselves become 
prolific towards the twelfth day from their birth. . . . 

One of these aphides will produce nearly twenty young ones 
in the course of a day; that is to say, a volume ten or twelve 
times equal to its own body. A single aphis which, at the 
beginning of the warm weather, would bring into the world 
ninety aphides, which ninety, twelve days after, would each 
produce ninety more, would be, in the fifth generation, author 
of five billions, nine hundred and four millions, nine thou¬ 
sand aphides—which is a tolerable amount. Now, one aphis 
is, in a year, the source of twenty generations. I very much 
doubt whether there would be room for them upon all the 
trees and all the plants in the world. The whole earth would 
be given up to aphides; but this fecundity, of which there are 
so many examples in nature, need not alarm us. One poppy 
plant produces thirty-two thousand seeds, one tobacco plant, 
three hundred and sixty thousand; each of these seeds produc¬ 
ing in its turn thirty-two thousand, or three hundred thou¬ 
sand—would you not think that, at the end of five years the 
earth would be entirely covered with tobacco and poppies? 
A carp lays three hundred and fifty thousand eggs at once. 
But life and death are nothing but transformations. Death is 

258 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 


the aliment of life. These aphides are the game that nourishes 
other insects, which in turn form the food of the birds we eat. 
Then we are returned to the elements, and serve as manure to 
the grass and the flowers, which will produce and feed other 
aphides. 

We need not go far to seek for the enemies of the aphides. 
Look! here, quite at his ease, on a rose-bud, is a little insect 
well known to children: it is shaped like a tortoise, and is 
about the size of a pea. Naturalists call it a “coccinella,” and 
children know it as the lady-bird. It is now innocent enough; 
but it has not always been so. Before it became possessed of 
its pretty form, and its polished shell of orange, yellow, black, 
or red, sprinkled with black or brown specks, it was a large,, 
flat worm, with six feet, and of a dirty grey color, marked with 
a few yellow spots. These worms, which issue from amber- 
colored eggs, deposited by the female upon leaves, are no' 
sooner born than they set out in search of aphides. When they 
have found a branch covered with game, they establish them¬ 
selves in the midst of it, and are not in want of food till the 
moment they feel they are about to be transformed; then they 
attach themselves to some solitary leaf, and wait, in abstinence, 
till they become veritable lady-birds. 

There would still be a superabundance of aphides if the 
lady-birds were their only enemies. But do you not see, hover¬ 
ing over one of the roses, a fly, whose two wings move so rapidly 
that it appears motionless? You would not care to catch it, it 
so much resembles a bee, or rather a wasp. Its body is striped 
with yellow and black, but instead of being round like the 
two insects you dread, it is remarkably flat; besides this, it has 
only two wings, and I do not believe that any two-winged fly 
has a sting. It does not seem to take any notice of the aphides 
which cover the branch near to it. It is a parvenu. It has 
forgotten the humility of its youth, when it had not its rich 
yellow and black vestments, or, more particularly, its wings. 

259 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


It was formerly a sort of shapeless worm, of a color not at all 
striking, a dirty green, with a yellow stripe the whole length 
of its body. Placing itself upon a bed of game, this worm 
seizes the aphides, one after another, with a sort of hollow 
trident, through which it sucks them, taking particular care to 
reject the empty dry skin every time. One of these worms eats 
nearly an aphis a minute; as regards the aphides, the matter 
appears to be perfectly indifferent to them, not one of them is 
ever seen to make the least effort to avoid being eaten. . . . 

I was afraid but now, of seeing the aphides invade the whole 
earth; I at present begin to fear that there will not be aphides 
enough to feed all the insects to which they are assigned 
as game. Nature appears to have partaken of this second fear, 
and for this reason has suppressed the delays and formalities, 
ordinarily reputed necessary; aphides must be born, eat, and be 
eaten in a very few days. 

But what is that black animal which is ascending the stem 
of the rose-tree? It is an ant; it climbs spirally, to avoid 
the thorns; there it is upon the branch that is covered by the 
aphides. Is this another enemy? Why, La Fontaine told you 
it fed upon worms and insects; there, it is upon them, but it 
does not devour them. As aphides eat, they secrete a sweet 

liquor of which ants are very fond, and this one is come to 

regale itself—it is a little black milkmaid, who comes to milk 
some little green cows, which pasture in a meadow of the size 
of a rose-leaf. 

There is a bee which has glided into a rose; it is not long 
before it comes out again, and flies away; its hind feet are 

loaded with a yellow dust, which it has abstracted from the 

heart of the flower. That yellow dust, mixed with the honey 
which it disgorges, will be the paste destined for the worms 
which are to become young bees. Do not fancy, however, that 
this dust has no other destination. It is now time to speak of 
the loves of the roses. 


260 


BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 

ASSIGNMENT FOR THE SECTION AS A WHOLE 
Write themes on some of these topics: 

ANIMALS 

An Animal in Captivity 
An Animal in a Trap 
Animals at the Zoo 

How We Are Inconsiderate of the Comfort of Animals 
Should Vivisection Be Permitted? 

Some Peculiar Member Possessed by an Animal, and Its Use 

The Qualities a Cat Displays in Catching a Mouse 

An Example of Animal Cunning 

How I Taught My Dog Tricks 

How to Tell the Tracks of Different Animals 

How I Proved that the Horse Was Mine 

How We Proved that Shep Did n’t Kill Sheep 

Feeding the Calf 

Taking Care of a Pet Rabbit 

The Dietary Delicacy of Captive Guinea-Pigs 

An Adorable Girl’s Odious Poodle 

A Dog Fight 

The Organ-Grinder’s Monkey 

Riding on a Camel (Elephant, Pony, Mule, Burro, Goat, Dog Sled) 
How to Train a Colt 
A Horserace 

How Brer Rabbit Fooled Brer Fox 
Pelf-Bearing Animals 
A Silver Fox Farm 

Escape from Wolves (a Bear, an Elephant, a Rhinoceros, a Bull) 
Tracked to Its Lair 
Hunting Big Game 
My First Kill 

The “Cunningest” Thing I Ever Saw an Animal Do 
The Most Interesting Thing I Ever Saw an Animal Do 

BIRDS 


How to Study Birds 
Birds in My Neighborhood 

Getting Acquainted with One’s Winged Neighbors 
Three Birds I Know by Their Song 

261 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


The Most Glorious Bird-Song I Ever Listened To 
A Captive Canary 

A Mother Bird’s Defense of Her Young 
How the Partridge Protects Its Young 
Some Examples of How Far Birds Migrate 
City Birds 

The Bird Most Useful to the Farmer 

The Least-Needed Bird 

Barnyard Etiquette 

My Neighbor’s Chickens 

A Rooster Fight 

Stealing Bird Eggs 

An Oriole’s Nest 

Making Friends with Birds 

The Care of Birds in Winter 

Visit to an Aviary 

A Pigeon (an Ostrich) Farm 

Some Things to Make Sure of in Building a Bird-House 
Some Birds I Have Wanted to Hear and See 
A Nest in an Unexpected Place 

INSECTS 


A Courageous Insect 

A Troublesome Insect 

The Most Ingenious Insect 

The Most Industrious Insect 

An Example of the Resourcefulness of Insects 

Insect Noises 

An Insect Habitation 

Structure of a Wasp’s Nest 

What the Microscope Revealed 

How We Kept Out the Ants (Cockroaches) 

The Boll Weevil 

Some Famous Visitations of Insect Pests 
“Ladybug, Ladybug, Fly Away Home” 

The Travels of Mr.- (an insect) 

Tree-Destroying Insects 

The- (an insect) as an Economic Agent 

Mosquitoes 

Disease-Carrying Insects 


262 




BIRDS, ANIMALS, AND INSECTS 

The Most Interesting Thing I Ever Saw About Insects 
What the Early Worm Gets Out of It 
Common Angleworms 


FISH 

A Fishing Trip 

Fisherman’s Luck 

The Best Fishing Season 

The Best Time of Day to Fish 

How to Fish for- (some species of fish) 

A Novel Method of Fishing 

My First Attempt at Deep Sea Fishing 

The Best Bait for - (some species of fish) 

Some Habits of Trout (Catfish, Salmon) 

Peculiarities of - (some species of fish) 

The Best Way to Cook Fish 

The Best Fish to Cook 

Do Fish Have a Sense of Feeling? 

Why Did God Give Fish Bones? 

When I Swallowed the Fishbone 
Watching the Minnows 

How We Boys Caught Minnows in a Brook 

An Amateur Fisherman 

How Nancy Caught an Eel 

How Isabel Put on the Bait 

The Fish I Did n’t Catch 

The Pleasures of Fishing 

An Unexpected Catch 

The Finest Catch I Ever Made 

My Greatest Thrill as a Fisherman 

How I Caught the Old Trout at Last 

Gigging by Lantern-Light 

The Tallest Fishing Yarn I Ever Heard 

ANIMAL LIFE IN GENERAL 

A Mischief-Maker Among Animals (Birds) 

Have Animals (Birds, Insects) a Sense of Humor? 
Ingenuity Shown by a Collie (any animal or bird) 
A Puzzled Animal (Bird, Insect) 

An Incensed Animal (Bird, Insect) 

An Animal (Bird, Insect) Out of Patience 

263 





CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Teasing an Animal (Bird, Insect) 

The Most Cruel Thing I Ever Saw Done to an Animal (a Bird) 
The Cruelty of Animal Life 

The Natural Enemies of- (an animal, a bird, or an insect) 

The Natural Prey of- (animal, bird, or insect) 

Setting Traps for- (an animal or a bird) 

The- (some animal or bird) in His Native Haunts 

Protective Coloring of Animals (Birds) 

Some Peculiarities of the- (animal, insect, or bird) 

Why I Think Pets Have Their Bad Points 
Hunting with a Camera 
What I Saw from My Covert 

The Secret Which an Animal (a Bird) and I Shared 
Something I Have Learned at First Hand About Animal Life 

Something I Have Learned from - (animal, insect, or bird) 

Some Human Parallels to Animal Temperament or Procedure. 


264 








OBSERVATION, TRAVEL, AND OUAINT 

HUMAN CUSTOMS 

One of the most emancipating of human experiences is to 
travel into other sections or nations, to learn at first hand about 
other people, other forms of government, other customs, other 
conceptions of life. He who has not traveled has need of an 
open mind and a sympathetic imagination. He also has need 
of a library for the study of conditions among alien races. 
Without these he is almost sure to be narrow and parochial in 
his outlook. 

Merely to go through the motions of traveling, or of sitting 
down and studying about foreigners, is not enough. One must 
have a seeing eye, a feeling heart, and an appraising judgment. 
We must not suppose that people who are different from us 
are therefore worse. Nor must we suppose that they are neces¬ 
sarily superior. For races as for individuals there is truth in 
Emerson’s law of compensation. To have this quality means, 
often, to be lacking in that. Wisdom demands that the 
traveler gain all that he can from outsiders while cleaving 
fast to everything meritorious in his own racial heritage. 

The student who has not traveled abroad has yet likely seen 
more than one social or economic class, more than one set 
of human conditions. He has been amused, enlightened, in¬ 
spired by some degree of contact with other persons than those 
of his own particular circle. Unless he is utterly intolerant, 
he likes to hear about other people. He in turn finds ready 
listeners when he can tell about other people himself. Travel 
therefore is one of the most satisfactory subjects to read about, 
and one of the most satisfactory to write about. A group of 

265 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


selections and assignments relative to it is indispensable to a 
book of this kind. 

ENGLISH FOOTPATHS * 

Nathaniel Hawthorne 

The chief enjoyment of my several visits to Leamington lay in 
rural walks about the neighborhood, and in jaunts to places of 
note and interest, which are particularly abundant in that 
region. The high-roads are made pleasant to the traveller by 
a border of trees, and often afford him the hospitality of a way- 
side bench beneath comfortable shade. But a fresher delight 
is to be found in the foot-paths, which go wandering away from 
stile to stile, along hedges, and across fields, and through wooded 
parks, leading you to little hamlets of thatched cottages, ancient, 
solitary farm-houses, picturesque old mills, streamlets, pools, 
and all those quiet, secret, unexpected, yet strangely familiar 
features of English scenery that Tennyson shows us in his 
idyls and eclogues. These by-paths admit the wayfarer into 
the very heart of rural life, and yet do not burden him with 
a sense of intrusiveness. He has a right to go whithersoever they 
lead him; for, with all their shaded privacy, they are as much 
the property of the public as the dusty high-road itself, and even 
by an older tenure. Their antiquity probably exceeds that of the 
Roman ways; the footsteps of the aboriginal Britons first wore 
away the grass, and the natural flow of intercourse between 
village and village has kept the track bare ever since. An 
American farmer would plough across any such path, and 
obliterate it with his hills of potatoes and Indian corn; but here 
it is protected by law, and still more by the sacredness that 
inevitably springs up, in this soil, along the well-defined foot¬ 
prints of centuries. Old associations are sure to be fragrant 
herbs in English nostrils; we pull them up as weeds. 

* From “Leamington Spa” in Our Old Home. 

266 


OBSERVATION, TRAVEL, AND CUSTOMS 


ENGLISH HOTELS * 

Nathaniel Hawthorne 

Perhaps a part of my weariness is owing to the hotel-life 
which we lead. At an English hotel the traveller feels as if 
everybody, from the landlord, downward, united in a joint and 
individual purpose to fleece him, because all the attendants who 
come in contact with him are to be separately considered. So, 
after paying, in the first instance, a very heavy bill, for what 
would seem to cover the whole indebtedness, there remain dues 
still to be paid, to no trifling amount, to the landlord’s servants, 
—dues not to be ascertained, and which you never can know 
whether you have properly satisfied. You can know, perhaps, 
when you have less than satisfied them, by the aspect of the 
waiter, which I wish I could describe,—not disrespectful in the 
slightest degree, but a look of profound surprise, a gaze at the 
offered coin (which he nevertheless pockets) as if he either did 
not see it, or did not know it, or could not believe his eye¬ 
sight;—all this, however, with the most quiet forbearance, a 
Christian-like non-recognition of an unmerited wrong and in¬ 
sult; and finally, all in a moment’s space indeed, he quits you 
and goes about his other business. If you have given him too 
much, you are made sensible of your folly by the extra amount 
of his gratitude, and the bows with which he salutes you from 
the doorstep. Generally, you cannot very decidedly say whether 
you have been right or wrong; but, in almost all cases, you 
decidedly feel that you have been fleeced. Then the living at 
the best English hotels, so far as my travels have brought me 
acquainted with them, deserves but moderate praise, and is 
especially lacking in variety. Nothing but joints, joints, joints; 
sometimes, perhaps, a meat-pie, which, if you eat it, weighs upon 
your conscience, with the idea that you have eaten the scraps 

* From “The Lakes” in English Note-Books . 

267 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


of other people’s dinners. At the lake hotels, the fare is lamb 
and mutton and trout,—the latter not always fresh, and soon 
tired of. We pay like nabobs, and are expected to be content 
with plain mutton. 

A STRANGE SOCIAL CUSTOM * 

R chard Henry Dana, Jr. 

Another of their games I was for some time at a loss about. 
A pretty young girl was dancing, named—after what would ap¬ 
pear to us an almost sacrilegious custom of the country—Es- 
piritu Santo, when a young man went behind her and placed his 
hat directly upon her head, letting it fall down over her eyes, 
and sprang back among the crowd. She danced for some time 
with the hat on, when she threw it off, which called forth a 
general shout, and the young man was obliged to go out upon 
the floor and pick it up. Some of the ladies, upon whose heads 
hats had been placed, threw them off at once, and a few kept 
them on throughout the dance, and took them off at the end, 
and held them out in their hands, when the owner stepped out, 
bowed, and took it from them. I soon began to suspect the 
meaning of the thing, and was afterwards told that it was a 
compliment, and an offer to become the lady’s gallant for the 
rest of the evening, and to wait upon her home. If the hat was 
thrown off, the offer was refused, and the gentleman was obliged 
to pick up his hat amid a general laugh. Much amusement was 
caused sometimes by gentlemen putting hats on the ladies’ 
heads, without permitting them to see whom it w’as done by. 
This obliged them to throw them off, or keep them on at a 
venture, and when they came to discover the owner the laugh 
was turned upon one or the other. 

* Two Years Before the Mast, Chapter XXVII. 


OBSERVATION, TRAVEL, AND CUSTOMS 


ST. PETER’S CATHEDRAL* 

Bayard Taylor 

Going directly down the Borgo Vecchio, it seemed a long time 
before we arrived at the square of St. Peter’s; and when at 
length we stood in front, with the majestic colonnade sweeping 
around—the fountains on each side sending up their showers 
of silvery spray—the mighty obelisk of Egyptian granite pierc¬ 
ing the sky—and beyond, the great facade and dome of the 
Cathedral, I confessed my unmingled admiration. It recalled to 
my mind the grandeur of ancient Rome, and mighty as her 
edifices must have been, I doubt if she could boast many views 
more overpowering than this. The fagade of St. Peter’s seemed 
close to us, but it was a third of a mile distant, and the people 
ascending the steps dwindled to pigmies. I passed the obelisk, 
went up the long ascent, crossed the portico, pushed aside the 
heavy leathern curtain at the entrance, and stood in the great 
nave. I need not describe my feelings at the sight, but I will 
give the dimensions, and the reader may then fancy what they 
were. Before me was a marble plain six hundred feet long, 
and under the cross four hundred and seventeen feet wide! 
One hundred and fifty feet above, sprang a glorious arch, daz¬ 
zling with inlaid gold, and in the centre of the cross there 
were four hundred feet of air between me and the top of the 
dome! The sunbeam, stealing through the lofty window at 
one end of the transept, made a bar of light on the blue air, 
hazy with incense, one tenth of a mile long, before it fell on the 
mosaics and gilded shrines of the other extremity. The grand 
cupola alone, including lantern and cross, is two hundred and 
eighty-five feet high, or sixty feet higher than the Bunker Hill 
Monument, and the four immense pillars on which it rests are 
each one hundred and thirty-seven feet in circumference! It 

* Views Afoot, Chapter XXXVII. Reprinted by permission of G. P. 
Putnam’s Sons. 

269 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


seems as if human art had outdone itself in producing this 
temple—the grandest which the world ever erected for the 
worship of the Living God! The awe I felt in looking up at the 
colossal arch of marble and gold, did not humble me; on the 
contrary, I felt exalted, ennobled—beings in the form I wore 
planned the glorious edifice, and it seemed that in godlike 
power and perseverance, they were indeed but a little lower than 
the angels. I felt that, if fallen, my race was still mighty and 
immortal. 


THEY ASKED ME FOR BREAD * 

A. W. Kinglake 

It had been arranged with my Arabs that they were to bring 
with them all the food which they would want for themselves 
during the passage of the desert, but as we rested, at the end of 
the first day’s journey, by the side of an Arab encampment, 
my camel-men found all that they required for that night in the 
tents of their own brethren. On the evening of the second day, 
however, just before we encamped for the night, my four Arabs 
came to Dthemetri, and formally announced that they had not 
brought with them one atom of food, and that they looked 
entirely to my supplies for their daily bread. This was awkward 
intelligence. We were now just two days deep in the desert, 
and I had brought with me no more bread than might be rea¬ 
sonably required for myself, and my European attendants. I 
believed at the moment (for it seemed likely enough) that the 
men had really mistaken the terms of the arrangement, and 
feeling that the bore of being put upon half-rations would be a 
less evil (and even to myself a less inconvenience) than the star¬ 
vation of my Arabs, I at once told Dthemetri to assure them 
that my bread should be equally shared with all. Dthemetri, 
however, did not approve of this concession; he assured me quite 


* Eothen, Chapter XVII. 


270 


OBSERVATION, TRAVEL, AND CUSTOMS 

positively that the Arabs thoroughly understood the agreement, 
and that if they were now without food, they had wilfully 
brought themselves into this strait for the wretched purpose of 
bettering their bargain by the value of a few paras’ worth of 
bread. This suggestion made me look at the affair in a new 
light. I should have been glad enough to put up with the slight 
privation to which my concession would subject me, and could 
have borne to witness the semi-starvation of poor Dthemetri with 
a fine philosophical calm; but it seemed to me that the scheme, if 
scheme it were, had something of audacity in it, and was well 
enough calculated to try the extent of my softness. I knew the 
danger of allowing such a trial to result in a conclusion that I 
was one who might be easily managed; and therefore, after thor¬ 
oughly satisfying myself, from Dthemetri’s clear and repeated 
assertions, that the Arabs had really understood the arrange¬ 
ment, I determined that they should not now violate it by taking 
advantage of my position in the midst of their big desert, so 
I desired Dthemetri to tell them that they should touch no 
bread of mine. We stopped, and the tent was pitched; the Arabs 
came to me and prayed loudly for bread; I refused them. 

“Then we die!” 

“God’s will be done.” 

I gave the Arabs to understand that I regretted their perishing 
by hunger, but that I should bear this calmly, like any other mis¬ 
fortune not my own—that, in short, I was happily resigned to 
their fate. The men would have talked a great deal, but they 
were under the disadvantage of addressing me through a hostile 
interpreter; they looked hard upon my face, but they found no 
hope there, so at last they retired, as they pretended to lay them 
down, and die. 

In about ten minutes from this time I found that the Arabs 
were busily cooking their bread! Their pretence of having 
brought no food was false, and was only invented for the pur¬ 
pose of saving it. They had a good bag of meal which they 

271 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


had contrived to stow away under the baggage, upon one of the 
camels, in such a way as to escape notice. In Europe the detec¬ 
tion of a scheme like this would have occasioned a disagreeable 
feeling between the master and the delinquent, but you would no 
more recoil from an Oriental on account of a matter of this sort, 
than in England you would reject a horse that had tried, and 
failed, to throw you. Indeed, I felt quite good-humouredly 
towards my Arabs, because they had so woefully failed in their 
wretched attempt, and because, as it turned out, I had done 
what was right; they, too, poor fellows, evidently began to like 
me immensely, on account of the hard-heartedness which had 
enabled me to baffle their scheme. 

OLD DUTCH TEA-PARTIES * 

Washington Irving 

In those happy days a well-regulated family always rose with 
the dawn, dined at eleven, and went to bed at sunset. Dinner 
was invariably a private meal, and the fat old burghers showed 
incontestable signs of disapprobation and uneasiness at being 
surprised by a visit from a neighbor on such occasions. But, 
though our worthy ancestors were thus singularly averse to 
giving dinners, yet they kept up the social bands of intimacy 
by occasional banquetings called tea-parties. 

These fashionable parties were generally confined to the 
higher classes—or noblesse —that is to say, such as kept their 
own cows and drove their own wagons. The company com¬ 
monly assembled at three o’clock and went away about six, 
unless it was in winter time, when the fashionable hours 
were a little earlier, that the ladies might get home before dark. 
The tea-table was crowned with a huge earthen dish well stored 
with slices of fat pork fried brown, cut up into morsels, and 
swimming in gravy. The company, being seated round the 

* Knickerbocker’s History, Book III, Chapter III. 

272 


OBSERVATION, TRAVEL, AND CUSTOMS 

genial board and each furnished with a fork, evinced their 
dexterity in launching at the fattest pieces in this mighty dish— 
in much the same manner as sailors harpoon porpoises at sea 
or our Indians spear salmon in the lakes. Sometimes the table 
was graced with immense apple pies or saucers full of preserved 
peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast an enormous 
dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called 
doughnuts, or olykoeks —a delicious kind of cake at present 
scarce known in this city, except in genuine Dutch families. 

The tea was served out of a majestic delft teapot orna¬ 
mented with paintings of fat little Dutch shepherds and shep¬ 
herdesses tending pigs, with boats sailing in the air, and houses 
built in the clouds, and sundry other ingenious Dutch fantasies. 
The beaux distinguished themselves by their adroitness in re¬ 
plenishing this pot from a huge copper tea-kettle which would 
have made the pigmy macaronies of these degenerate days sweat 
merely to look at it. To sweeten the beverage a lump of sugar 
was laid beside each cup, and the company alternately nibbled 
and sipped with great decorum, until an improvement was intro¬ 
duced by a shrewd and economic old lady, which was to suspend 
a large lump directly over the tea-table by a string from the 
ceiling, so that it could be swung from mouth to mouth—an 
'ingenious expedient which is still kept up by some families in 
Albany, but which prevails without exception in Communipaw, 
Bergen, Flatbush, and all our uncontaminated Dutch villages. 

At these primitive tea-parties the utmost propriety and dignity 
of deportment prevailed. No flirting nor coquetting; no gam¬ 
bling of old ladies nor hoyden chattering and romping of young 
ones; no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen with 
their brains in their pockets; nor amusing conceits and monkey 
divertisements of smart young gentlemen with no brains at all. 
On the contrary, the young ladies seated themselves demurely 
in their rush-bottomed chairs and knit their own woollen stock¬ 
ings, nor ever opened their lips excepting to say Yah , Mynheer, 

273 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


or Yah ya, Vrouw, to any question that was asked them, behav¬ 
ing in all things like decent, well-educated damsels. As to the 
gentlemen, each of them tranquilly smoked his pipe and seemed 
lost in contemplation of the blue and white tiles with which the 
fireplaces were decorated, whereon sundry passages of Scrip¬ 
tures were piously portrayed: Tobit and his dog figured to 
great advantage; Haman swung conspicuously on his gibbet; 
and Jonah appeared most manfully bouncing out of the whale, 
like Harlequin through a barrel of fire. 

The parties broke up without noise and without confusion. 
They were carried home by their own carriages—that is to say, 
by the vehicles Nature had provided them—excepting such of 
the wealthy as could afford to keep a w T agon. The gentlemen 
gallantly attended their fair ones to their respective abodes, and 
took leave of them with a hearty smack at the door, which as it 
was an established piece of etiquette, done in perfect simplicity 
and honesty of heart, occasioned no scandal at that time, nor 
should it at the present: if our great-grandfathers approved of 
the custom, it wx>uld argue a great w T ant of reverence in their 
descendants to say a v T ord against it. 

OUR VISIT TO A KICKAPOO VILLAGE * 

Francis Parkman 

This selection, which shows description and narration merging, is 
also a good example of progressive description. The physical point 
of view changes frequently; the author by pointing out, stage by 
stage, what he saw on his visit, enables us to discover things in their 
right order and almost to feel that we have accompanied him. 

Passing through the garrisonf, we rode toward the Kickapoo 
village, five or six miles beyond. The path, a rather dubious 
and uncertain one, led us along the ridge of high bluffs that 

* The Oregon Trail, Chapter III. 

t At Fort Leavenworth. 


274 


OBSERVATION, TRAVEL, AND CUSTOMS 

border the Missouri; and, by looking to the right and to the 
left, we could enjoy a strange contrast of scenery. On the left 
stretched the prairie, rising intp swells and undulations thickly 
sprinkled with groves, or gracefully expanding into wide grassy 
basins, of miles in extent; while its curvatures, swelling against 
the horizon, were often surmounted by lines of sunny woods; 
a scene to which the freshness of the season and the peculiar 
mellowness of the atmosphere gave additional softness. Below 
us, on the right, was a tract of ragged and broken woods. We 
could look down on the tops of the trees, some living and some 
dead; some erect, others leaning at every angle, and others 
piled in masses together by the passage of a hurricane. Beyond 
their extreme verge the turbid waters of the Missouri were dis¬ 
cernible through the boughs, rolling powerfully along at the 
foot of the woody declivities on its farther bank. 

The path soon after led inland; and, as we crossed an open 
meadow, we saw a cluster of buildings on a rising ground 
before us, with a crowd of people surrounding them. They were 
the storehouse, cottage, and stables of the Kickapoo trader’s 
establishment. Just at that moment, as it chanced, he was beset 
with half the Indians of the settlement. They had tied their 
wretched, neglected little ponies by dozens along the fences and 
outhouses, and were lounging about the place, or crowding into 
the trading-house. Here were faces of various colors: red, green, 
white, and black, curiously intermingled and disposed over the 
visage in a variety of patterns. Calico shirts, red and blue 
blankets, brass ear-rings, wampum necklaces, appeared in pro¬ 
fusion. The trader was a blue-eyed, open-faced man, who 
neither in his manners nor his appearance betrayed any of the 
roughness of the frontier; though just at present he was obliged 
to keep a lynx eye on his customers, who, men and women, were 
climbing on his counter, and seating themselves among his boxes 
and bales. 

The village itself was not far off, and sufficiently illustrated 

275 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


the condition of its unfortunate and self-abandoned occupants. 
Fancy to yourself a little swift stream, working its devious way 
down a woody valley; sometimes wholly hidden under logs and 
fallen trees, sometimes spreading into a broad, clear pool; and 
on its banks, in little nooks cleared away among the trees, 
miniature loghouses, in utter ruin and neglect. A labyrinth 
of narrow, obstructed paths connected these habitations one 
with another. Sometimes we met a stray calf, a pig, or a pony, 
belonging to some of the villagers, who usually lay in the sun 
in front of their dwellings, and looked on u.s with cold, sus¬ 
picious eyes as we approached. Farther on, in place of the log- 
huts of the Kickapoos, we found the pukwi lodges of their 
neighbors, the Pottawattamies, whose condition seemed no better 
than theirs. 

Growing tired at last, and exhausted by the excessive heat 
and sultriness of the day, we returned to our friend, the trader. 
By this time the crowd around him had dispersed, and left him 
at leisure. He invited us to his cottage, a little white-and-green 
building, in the style of the old French settlements; and ushered 
us into a neat, well-furnished room. The blinds were closed, 
and the heat and glare of the sun excluded; the room was as 
cool as a cavern. It was neatly carpeted, too, and furnished in 
a manner that we hardly expected on the frontier. The sofas, 
chairs, tables, and a well-filled bookcase, would not have dis¬ 
graced an eastern city; though there were one or two little 
tokens that indicated the rather questionable civilization of the 
region. _ A pistol, loaded and capped, lay on the mantel-piece; 
and through the glass of the bookcase, peeping above the works 
of John Milton, glittered the handle of a very mischievous- 
looking knife. 

Our host went out, and returned with iced water, glasses, and 
a bottle of excellent claret,—a refreshment most welcome in the 
extreme heat of the day; and soon after appeared a merry, 
laughing woman, who must have been, a year or two before, a 
. 276 


OBSERVATION, TRAVEL, AND CUSTOMS 

very rich specimen of creole beauty. She came to say that lunch 
was ready in the next room. Our hostess evidently lived on the 
sunny side of life, and troubled herself with none of its cares. 
She sat down and entertained us while we were at table with 
anecdotes of fishing-parties, frolics, and the officers at the fort. 
Taking leave at length of the hospitable trader and his friend, 
we rode back to the garrison. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a theme on one of the following (in illustration, not of 
travel, but of progressive description) : 

The Outside of a House (seen from a distance) ; the Inside (seen 
through the door) ; the View from Within 

A Man’s Features; Then His Garb; Then the Reports You Have 
Heard of Him 

My Visit to a Mine (a Hangar, a Factory, a Newspaper Plant, a 
Department Store). 

THE BAZAARS OF CAIRO * 

\melia B. Edwards 

But in order thoroughly to enjoy an overwhelming, inefface¬ 
able first impression of oriental out-of-door life one should 
begin in Cairo with a day in the native bazaars; neither buying, 
nor sketching, nor seeking information, but just taking in scene 
after scene, with its manifold combinations of light and shade, 
color, costume, and architectural detail. Every shop front, 
every street corner, every turbaned group is a ready-made pic¬ 
ture. The old Turk who sets up his cake stall in the recess 
of a sculptured doorway; the donkey-boy, with his gaily capari¬ 
soned ass, waiting for customers; the beggar asleep on the steps 
of the mosque; the veiled woman filling her water jar at the 
public fountain—they all look as if they had been put there 
expressly to be painted. 

* A Thousand Miles Up the Nile, Chapter I. 

277 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

Nor is the background less picturesque than the figures. The 
houses are high and narrow. The upper stories project; and 
from these again jut windows of delicate turned lattice work in 
old brown wood, like big bird-cages. The street is roofed in 
overhead with long rafters and pieces of matting, through which 
a dusty sunbeam straggles here and there, casting patches of 
light upon the moving crowd. The unpaved thoroughfare— 
a mere narrow lane, full of ruts and watered profusely twice or 
thrice a day—is lined with little wooden shop fronts, like open 
cabinets full of shelves, where the merchants sit cross-legged 
in the midst of their goods, looking out at the passers-by and 
smoking in silence. Meanwhile, the crowd ebbs and flows 
unceasingly—a noisy, changing, restless, party-colored tide, half 
European, half oriental, on foot, on horseback, and in carriages. 
Here are Syrian dragomans in baggy trousers and braided 
jackets; bare-footed Egyptian fellaheen in ragged blue shirts 
and felt skull-caps; Greeks in absurdly stiff white tunics, like 
walking pen-wipers; Persians with high, mitre-like caps of dark 
woven stuff; swarthy Bedouins in flowing garments, creamy- 
white with chocolate strips a foot wide, and head-shawl of the 
same bound about the brow with a fillet of twisted camel’s hair; 
Englishmen in palm-leaf hats and knickerbockers, dangling 
their long legs across almost invisible donkeys; native women 
of the poorer class, in black veils that leave only the eyes uncov¬ 
ered, and long trailing garments of dark blue and black striped 
cotton; dervishes in patchwork coats, their matted hair streaming 
from under fantastic head-dresses; blue-black Abyssinians with 
incredibly slender, bowed legs, like attenuated ebony balu¬ 
strades; Armenian priests, looking exactly like Portia as the 
Doctor, in long black gowns and high square caps; majestic 
ghosts of Algerine Arabs, all in white; mounted Janissaries 
with jingling sabres and gold-embroidered jackets; merchants, 
beggars, soldiers, boatmen, laborers, workmen, in every variety 
of costume, and of every shade of complexion from fair to 

278 


OBSERVATION, TRAVEL, AND CUSTOMS 

dark, from tawny to copper-color, from deepest bronze to bluest 
black. 

Now a water-carrier goes by, bending under the weight of his 
newly-replenished goatskin, the legs of which being tied up, 
the neck fitted with a brass cock, and the hair left on, looks 
horribly bloated and life-like. Now comes a sweetmeat-vendor 
with a tray of that gummy compound known to English children 
as “lumps of delight”; and now an Egyptian lady on a large 
grey donkey led by a servant with a showy sabre at his side. 
The lady wears a rose-colored silk dress and white veil, besides 
a black silk outer garment, which, being cloak, hood, and veil 
all in one, fills out with the wind as she rides, like a balloon. 
She sits astride; her naked feet, in their violet velvet slippers, 
just resting on the stirrups. She takes care to display a plump 
brown arm laden with massive gold bracelets, and, to judge by 
the way in which she uses a pair of liquid black eyes, would not 
be sorry to let her face be seen also. Nor is the steed less well 
dressed than his mistress. His close-shaven legs and hind¬ 
quarters are painted in blue and white zigzags picked out with 
bands of pale yellow; his high-pommelled saddle is resplendent 
with velvet and embroidery; and his head-gear is all tags, tas¬ 
sels, and fringes. Such a donkey as this is worth from sixty 
to a hundred pounds sterling. Next passes an open barouche 
full of laughing Englishwomen; or a grave provincial sheik all 
in black, riding a handsome bay Arab, demi-sang; or an Egyp¬ 
tian gentleman in European dress and Turkish fez, driven by 
an English groom in an English phaeton. Before him, wand in 
hand, bare-legged, eager-eyed, in Greek skull-cap and gorgeous 
gold-embroidered waistcoat and fluttering white tunic, flies a 
native sais, or running footman. No person of position drives 
in Cairo without one or two of these attendants. The sai's 
(strong, light, and beautiful, like John of Bologna’s Mercury), 
are said to die young. The pace kills them. Next passes a 
lemonade-seller with his tin jar in one hand and his decanter 

279 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


and brass cups in the other; or an itinerant slipper-vendor with 
a bunch of red and yellow morocco shoes dangling at the end of 
a long pole; or a London-built miniature brougham containing 
two ladies in transparent Turkish veils, preceded by a Nubian 
outrider in semi-military livery; or, perhaps, a train of camels, 
ill-tempered and supercilious, craning their scrannel necks 
above the crowd, and laden with canvas bales scrawled over 
with Arabic addresses. 

But the Egyptian, Arab, and Turkish merchants, whether 
mingling in the general tide or sitting on their counters, are the 
most picturesque personages in all this busy scene. They wear 
ample turbans, for the most part white; long vests of striped 
Syrian silk reaching to the feet; and an outer robe of braided 
cloth or cashmere. The vest is confined round the waist by a 
rich sash; and the outer robe, or gibbeh, is generally of some 
beautiful degraded color, such as maize, mulberry, olive, peach, 
sea-green, salmon-pink, sienna-brown, and the like. That these 
stately beings should vulgarly buy and sell, instead of reposing 
all their lives on luxurious divans and being waited upon by 
beautiful Circassians, seems altogether contrary to the eternal 
fitness of things. Here, for instance, is a grand vizier in a 
gorgeous white and amber stain vest, who condescends to retail 
pipe-bowls,—dull red clay pipe-bowls of all sizes and prices. 
He sells nothing else, and has not only a pile of them on the 
counter, but a binful at the back of his shop. They are made 
at Siout, in Upper Egypt, and may be bought at the Algerine 
shops in London almost as cheaply as in Cairo. Another 
majestic pasha deals in brass and copper vessels, drinking-cups, 
basins, ew r ers, trays, incense-burners, chafing-dishes, and the 
like; some of which are exquisitely engraved with arabesque 
patterns or sentences from the poets. A third sells silks from 
the looms of Lebanon and gold and silver tissues from Damas¬ 
cus. Others, again, sell old arms, old porcelain, old embroid¬ 
eries, second-hand prayer-carpets, and quaint little stools and 

280 



OBSERVATION, TRAVEL, AND CUSTOMS 

cabinets of ebony inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Here, too, the 
tobacco merchant sits behind a huge cake of latakia as big as 
his own body; and the sponge merchant smokes his long chibouk 
in a bower of sponges. 

Most amusing of all, however, are those bazaars in which 
each trade occupies its separate quarter. You pass through an 
old stone gateway or down a narrow turning, and find yourself 
amid a colony of saddlers stitching, hammering, punching, 
riveting. You walk up one alley and down another, between 
shop fronts hung round with tasseled head-gear and hump¬ 
backed saddles of all qualities and colors. Here are ladies’ 
saddles, military saddles, donkey saddles, and saddles for great 
officers of state; saddles covered with red leather, with crimson 
and violet velvet, with maroon, and grey, and purple cloth; 
saddles embroidered with gold and silver, studded with brass¬ 
headed nails, or trimmed with braid. 

Another turn or two, and you are in the slipper bazaar, walk¬ 
ing down avenues of red and yellow morocco slippers, the former 
of home manufacture, the latter from Tunis. Here are slippers 
with pointed toes, turned-up toes, and toes as round and flat as 
horse-shoes; walking slippers with thick soles, and soft yellow 
slippers, to be worn as inside socks, which have no soles at all. 
These absurd little scarlet bluchers with tassels are for little 
boys; the brown morocco shoes are for grooms; the velvet slip¬ 
pers embroidered with gold and beads and seed pearls are for 
wealthy hareems, and are sold at prices varying from five shil¬ 
lings to five pounds the pair. 

The carpet-bazaar is of considerable extent, and consists of 
a network of alleys and counter-alleys opening off the right of 
the Muski, which is the Regent Street of Cairo. The houses in 
most of these alleys are rich in antique lattice windows and 
Saracenic doorways. One little square is tapestried all round 
with Persian and Syrian rugs, Damascus saddle-bags, and Turk¬ 
ish prayer-carpets. The merchants sit and smoke in the midst 

281 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


of their goods; and up in one corner an old “kahwagee,” or 
coffee-seller, plies his humble trade. He has set up his little 
stove and hanging-shelf beside the doorway of a dilapidated 
khan, the walls of which are faced with arabesque panelings in 
old carved stone. It is one of the most picturesque “bits” in 
Cairo. The striped carpets of Tunis; the dim gray and blue, 
or gray and red fabrics of Algiers; the shaggy rugs of Laodicea 
and Smyrna; the rich blues and greens and subdued reds of 
Turkey; and the wonderfully varied, harmonious patterns of 
Persia, have each their local habitation in the neighboring 
alleys. One is never tired of traversing these half-lighted ave¬ 
nues all aglow with gorgeous color and peopled with figures 
that come and go like the actors in some Christmas piece of 
oriental pageantry. 

ASSIGNMENT FOR THE SECTION AS A WHOLE 

Write a theme on one of these topics. Try by every means at 
your command to make your material live for your reader. 

A Peculiar (Quaint, Rural, “Old Timey”) Custom at - 

A Misunderstanding Due to Differences in Custom 

Some Rural Games 

Some Ancient (Exotic) Superstitions 

What I Saw at- 

How the Things I Saw at - Impressed Me 

Some Queer Domestic Practices at- 

Would You Think It Possible? 

What We Could Do in-That We Could Not Do in My Section 

What We Could Do in My Section That We Could Not Do in- 

A Custom Among - (Jews, Italians, Scandinavians, Negroes, 

Hindus, Chinese, Japanese, South Sea Islanders, Eskimos, the 
Hill Billies, the Mountaineers, Plainsmen, Cowboys, Pioneers, 
Fishermen, Longshoremen, Bootblacks, Plumbers, Clubmen, 
Journalists, Undertakers, Haunters of the Junk Heaps, Old 
Clothes Men, Truck Gardeners, Hucksters, some other race 
or class) 

The Story the Tramp Told Us of His Life 
A Fantastic Rite Among Savages 

282 









OBSERVATION, TRAVEL, AND CUSTOMS 

An Uncanny Ceremony 
A Gorgeous (Exotic) Spectacle 
The “Foreign’’ Quarter of a City 
A Distinctive Section of My City 
A Queer, Old-Fashioned Sect 
My Visit to a Strange Community 

A Surprise (finding conditions much better or more familiar than 
you expected) 

My First Day in a Foreign Country 
Home Again 

How I Violated the Customs of the Country 
Forlorn Spectacle of a Man in a Strange Environment 
The Newly Landed Immigrant 
A Stranger in a Strange Land 

Some Hardships of Life Among the - 

Some Amenities of Life Among the - 

An Outlandish Dish 
My First Visit to a Cabaret 
A Glimpse Behind the Scenes 
Something I Saw at Our City Carnival 
An Incantation 

A Visit to the Fortune-Teller 
The Witch-Doctor 
A Visit to the Camp of the Gipsies 
A Trip on Snowshoes (Skis) 

A Ride in a Jinrikisha 

The “Stage-Setting” for Initiations Into My Fraternity (Lodge) 
The Services at a Church I Had Never Before Attended 
A Historic Building 

The Most Interesting Piece of Architecture I Ever Saw 
Some Interesting Things at the Museum 
An Amazing Costume 

Some Features of the - (Northern, Southern, Eastern, West¬ 

ern, Prairie, Mountainous, English, French, Dutch, Italian, 
Spanish, Russian, Oriental, Tropical, Arctic) Landscape 
A Typical French Compared with a Typical Norwegian Landscape 
(substitute other landscapes if you wish) 

Why I Love the English Countryside 

Something Peculiar About the Landscape (Architecture, Speech, 
Mode of Life, Customs, Ideas) of- (some section or coun¬ 

try) 


283 






CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Linguistic Peculiarities I Have Observed in the South (New 
England, the West) 

The Way Different Foreigners Try to Speak English 

My Favorite Book of Travel 

The Race I Most Like to Read About 

Some Contrasts Between the Customs of Two Races 

The Race to Which My Forbears Belonged 

The Delights (Embarrassments) of Traveling with a Camera 

My Delightful (Annoying) Fellow Travelers. 


284 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


A young man graduating, from Harvard delivered at Com¬ 
mencement an address on Panama, a subject in which, though 
he had been attracted to it casually, he had become absorbed. 
One of his auditors, Theodore Roosevelt, was so interested in 
what he said as to talk with him at some length afterward and 
to name other aspects of the subject that invited investigation. 
After pursuing his study for some months longer, the young man 
was prompted to write a series of magazine articles—and they 
brought him considerable prestige. Roosevelt, becoming Presi¬ 
dent, appointed him a member of a commission that was to con¬ 
duct elaborate researches into conditions in Panama. All this 
in turn led to a book on Panama. In fact that Commencement 
address on Panama, properly followed up, gave the young man 
his living for several years and won for him enviable distinction. 

The incident illustrates the almost inexhaustible possibilities 
of development that inhere in any subject. The subject at first 
seems barren, and the interest it does contain seems so obvious 
as not to need explaining; but presently the subject unfolds, 
becomes extensive, comprehensive, gigantic. Tennyson says 
that if we could understand a mere flower plucked from a cran¬ 
nied wall, understand it through and through in all its rela¬ 
tions and implications, we should understand the whole universe 
—understand God and man. 

The inexhaustibility of the subject includes the endless variety 
of it. Talk with a musician, and he will explain to you either 

285 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


how he detected the musical potentialities of one of his students, 
or what Bach contributed to music, or how the virtuoso was 
forced into compromises in arranging a popular program. Talk 
with a baseball player, and he will tell you why home runs 
are more numerous now T than they were a few years ago, or 
what constitutes a balk, or how Ty Cobb stole home in a world’s 
series. In other words, the musician and the baseball player, 
because they really know their respective subjects, can discuss 
manifold aspects of them, can adapt their knowledge of them 
to the state of mind of anybody interested enough to listen. 

Students are inclined to think they do well if they squeeze 
from a subject a single theme. But subjects are not thus easily 
exhausted. A single subject, rightly probed and rifled, will 
yield themes for a term, for a year, for a whole college course 
or a life-time. It will yield arguments, expositions, descriptions, 
narratives. It contains these measureless possibilities because 
of two things: (1) the multitude of its phases, and (2) the 
multitude of approaches to each of these phases through the 
wish or the need to adapt it to moods, purposes, and audiences 
uncountable. 

In this section of the text the articles are divided into groups, 
each group dealing with a single subject. No group exhausts 
its subject; it but indicates some of the things that may be done 
with it. The articles of the group illustrate both similarity and 
divergence as to material, point of view, mood, purpose, style, 
and audience addressed. 

GROUP I—LEARNING HOW TO WRITE 

All these selections are concerned with the way a man learned 
to write. The one from Boswell points out an extraordinary 
power in Johnson and accounts for it. The one from Lincoln 

286 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


shows us a child irritated by a fault in other people which he 
sets to work to overcome in himself. The one from Franklin 
traces the struggles of a boy to imitate a model wisely. The 
one from Stevenson explains the efforts of a boy both to achieve 
for himself and to attain various standards, and then philoso¬ 
phizes the experience. The first one from London recounts the 
hardships and ludicrous handicaps of a boy trying to break into 
print. The second one from London reveals the precarious 
expedients and trying dilemmas of a man who is first securing 
a literary foothold. 

HOW JOHNSON ATTAINED A FLUENT 
AND FORCEFUL STYLE * 

James Boswelj 

Posterity will be astonished when they are told, upon the 
authority of Johnson himself, that many of these discourses, 
which we should suppose had been labored with all the slow 
attention of literary leisure, were written in haste as the momeat 
pressed, without even being read over by him before they were 
printed. It can be accounted for only in this way: that by 
reading and meditation and a very close inspection of life he 
had accumulated a great fund of miscellaneous knowledge, 
which, by a peculiar promptitude of mind, was ever ready at 
his call, and which he had constantly accustomed himself to 
clothe in the most apt and energetic expression. Sir Joshua 
Reynolds once asked him by what means he had attained his 
extraordinary accuracy and flow of language. He told him 
that he had early laid it down as a fixed rule to do his best on 
every occasion and in every company; to impart whatever he 
knew in the most forcible language he could put it in; and that 
by constant practice, and never suffering any careless expressions 


* From the Life of Johnson. 


28 7 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


to escape him, or attempting to deliver his thoughts without 
arranging them in the clearest manner, it became habitual 
to him. 


MY PASSION FOR CLEARNESS OF STYLE 
Abraham Lincoln 

When a mere child I used to get irritated when anybody 
talked to me in a way I could not understand. I do not think 
I ever got angry at anything else in my life; but that always 
disturbed my temper, and has ever since. I can remember 
going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of 
an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the 
night walking up and down trying to make out what was the 
exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings. 

I could not sleep when I got on such a hunt for an idea until 
I had caught it; and when I thought I had got it, I was not 
satisfied until I had put it in language plain enough, as I 
thought, for any boy to comprehend. This was a kind of pas¬ 
sion with me, and it has stuck by me; for I am never easy now, 
when I am handling a thought, till I have bounded it north, 
and bounded it south, and bounded it east, and bounded it west. 

IMITATING THE SPECTATOR PAPERS * 
Benjamin Franklin 

About this time I met with an odd volume of the “Spectator.” 
It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I 
bought it, read it over and over, and was much delighted with 
it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished, if possible, to 
imitate it. With this view I took some of the papers, and, 
making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them 
by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to 

* From the Autobiography . 

288 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment 
at length, and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any 
suitable words that should come to hand. Then I compared 
my “Spectator” with the original, discovered some of my faults, 
and corrected them. But I found I wanted a stock of words, 
or a readiness in recollecting and using them, which I thought 
I should have acquired before that time if I had gone on mak¬ 
ing verses; since the continual occasion for words of the same 
import, but of different length, to suit the measure, or of 
different sound for the rhyme, would have laid me under a 
constant necessity of searching for variety, and also have tended 
to fix that variety in my mind and make me master of it. 
Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them into verse; 
and, after a time, when I had pretty well forgotten the prose, 
turned them back again. I also sometimes jumbled my collec¬ 
tions of hints into confusion, and after some weeks endeavored 
to reduce them into the best order, before I began to form the 
full sentences and complete the paper. This was to teach me 
method in the arrangement of thoughts. By comparing my 
work afterwards with the original, I discovered many faults 
and amended them; but I sometimes had the pleasure of fancy¬ 
ing that, in certain particulars of small import, I had been 
lucky enough to improve the method or the language, and 
this encouraged me to think I might possibly in time come 
to be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely 
ambitious. . . . 

HOW I LEARNED TO WRITE * 

Robert Louis Stevenson 

All through my boyhood and youth, I was known and pointed 
out for the pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on 
my own private end, which was to learn to write. I kept always 

* From “A College Magazine” in Memories and Portraits. Reprinted by 
permission of Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

289 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. As I 
walked, my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate 
words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either read, oi* a 
pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note 
down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting 
stanzas. Thus I lived with words. And what I thus wrote 
was for no ulterior use, it was written consciously for practice. 
It was not so much that I wished to be an author (though I 
wished that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn to 
write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I practised 
to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with myself. 
Description was the principal field of my exercise; for to any 
one with senses there is always something worth describing, 
and town and country are but one continuous subject. But I 
worked in other ways also; often accompanied my walks with 
dramatic dialogues, in which I played many parts; and often 
exercised myself in writing down conversations from memory. 

This was all excellent, no doubt; so were the diaries I some¬ 
times tried to keep, but always and very speedily discarded, 
finding them a school of posturing and melancholy self-decep¬ 
tion. And yet this was not the most efficient part of my train¬ 
ing. Good though it was, it only taught me (so far as I have 
learned them at all) the lower and less intellectual elements of 
the art, the choice of the essential note and the right word: things 
that to a happier constitution had perhaps come by nature. And 
regarded as training, it had one grave defect; for it set me no 
standard of achievement. So that there was perhaps more 
profit, as there was certainly more effort, in my secret labors at 
home. Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly 
pleased me, in which a thing was said or an effect rendered 
with propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force 
or some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at once 
and set myself to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I 
knew it: and tried again, and was again unsuccessful and always 

290 



ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts, I got some practice 
in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the co-ordination 
of parts. I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to 
Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to 
Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire and to Obermann. I 
remember one of these monkey tricks, which was called The 
Vanity of Morals: it was to have had a second part, The Vanity 
of Knowledge; and as I had neither morality nor scholarship, 
the names were apt; but the second part was never attempted, 
and the first part was written (which is my reason for recalling 
it, ghostlike, from its ashes) no less than three times: first in the 
manner of Hazlitt, second in the manner of Ruskin, who had 
cast on me a passing spell, and third, in a laborious pasticcio of 
Sir Thomas Browne. . . . But enough has been said to show 
by what arts of impersonation, and in what purely ventriloquial 
efforts I first saw my words on paper. 

That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether I 
have profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats learned, 
and there was never a finer temperament for literature than 
Keats’s; it was so, if we could trace it out, that all men have 
learned; and that is why a revival of letters is always accom¬ 
panied or heralded by a cast back to earlier and fresher models. 
Perhaps I hear some one cry out: But this is not the way to be 
original! It is not; nor is there any way but to be born so. 
Nor yet, if you are born original, is there anything in this train¬ 
ing that shall clip the wings of your originality. There can be 
none more original than Montaigne, neither could any be more 
unlike Cicero; yet no craftsman can fail to see how much the 
one must have tried in his time to imitate the other. Burns 
is the very type of a prime force in letters: he was of all men 
the most imitative. Shakespeare himself, the imperial, pro¬ 
ceeds directly from a school. It is only from a school that we 
can expect to have good writers; it is almost invariably from a 
school that great writers, these lawless exceptions, issue. 

291 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


MY FIRST EFFORTS TO WRITE * 

Jack London 

I completed the first half of my freshman year, and in Janu¬ 
ary of 1897 took up my course for the second half. But the 
pressure from lack of money, plus a conviction that the univer¬ 
sity was not giving me all that I wanted in the time I could 
spare for it, forced me to leave. I was not very disappointed. 
For two years I had studied, and in those two years, what was 
far more valuable, I had done a prodigious amount of reading. 
Then, too, my grammar had improved. It is true, I had not yet 
learned that I must say “It is 1”; but I no longer was guilty 
of the double negative in writing, though still prone to that error 
in excited speech. 

I decided immediately to embark on my career. I had four 
preferences: first, music; second, poetry; third, the writing of 
philosophic, economic, and political essays; and, fourth, and 
last, and least, fiction writing. I resolutely cut out music as 
impossible, settled down in my bedroom, and tackled my second, 
third and fourth choices simultaneously. Heavens, how I wrote 1 
Never w T as there a creative fever such as mine from which the 
patient escaped fatal results. The way I worked was enough 
to soften my brain and send me to a mad-house. I wrote, I 
wrote everything—ponderous essays, scientific and sociological, 
short stories, humorous verse, verse of all sorts from triolets and 
sonnets to blank verse tragedy and elephantine epics in Spense¬ 
rian stanzas. On occasion I composed steadily, day after day, 
for fifteen hours a day. At times I forgot to eat, or refused to 
tear myself away from my passionate outpouring in order to eat. 

And then there was the matter of typewriting. My brother-in- 
law owned a machine which he used in the daytime. In the 

* John Barleycorn, Chapter XXIII. Reprinted by permission of the 
Century Co. 


292 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


night I was free to use it. That machine was a wonder. I 
could weep now as I recollect my wrestlings with it. It must 
have been a first model in the year one of the typewriter era. 
Its alphabet was all capitals. It was informed with an evil 
spirit. It obeyed no known laws of physics, and overthrew the 
hoary axiom that like things performed to like things produce 
like results. I 11 swear that machine never did the same thing 
in the same way twice. Again and again it demonstrated that 
unlike actions produce like results. 

How my back used to ache with it! Prior to that experience, 
my back had been good for every violent strain put upon it in 
a none too gentle career. But that typewriter proved to me 
that I had a pipe-stem for a back. Also, it made me doubt my 
shoulders. They ached as with rheumatism after every bout. 
The keys of that machine had to be hit so hard that to one 
outside the house it sounded like distant thunder or some one 
breaking up the furniture. I had to hit the keys so hard that 
I strained my first fingers to the elbows, while the ends of my 
fingers were blisters burst and blistered again. Had it been 
my machine I'd have operated it with a carpenter’s hammer. 

The worst of it was that I was actually typing my manu¬ 
scripts at the same time I was trying to master that machine. 
It was a feat of physical endurance and a brain storm com¬ 
bined to type a thousand words, and I was composing thousands 
of words every day which just had to be typed for the waiting 
editors. . . . 

But the waiting editors elected to keep on waiting. My manu¬ 
scripts made amazing round-trip records between the Pacific 
and the Atlantic. It might have been the weirdness of the type¬ 
writing that prevented the editors from accepting at least one lit¬ 
tle offering of mine. I don't know, and goodness knows the stuff 
I wrote was as weird as its typing. I sold my hard-bought school 
books for ridiculous sums to second-hand bookmen. I borrowed 


293 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


small sums of money wherever I could, and suffered my old 
father to feed me with the meager returns of his failing strength. 

It didn’t last long, only a few weeks, when I had to surrender 
and go to work. 

MY DEFINITE BEGINNINGS AS A WRITER * 

Jack London 

I sought odd jobs. I worked days, and half-days, at anything 
I could get. I mowed lawns, trimmed hedges, took up carpets, 
beat them, and laid them again. Further, I took the civil serv¬ 
ice examinations for mail carrier and passed first. But alas, 
there was no vacancy, and I must wait. And while I waited, 
and in between the odd jobs I managed to procure, I started to 
earn ten dollars by writing a newspaper account of a voyage 
I had made, in an open boat down the Yukon, of nineteen hun¬ 
dred miles in nineteen days. I did n’t know the first thing about 
the newspaper game, but I was confident I’d get ten dollars for 
my article. 

But I didn’t. The first San Francisco newspaper to which 
I mailed it never acknowledged receipt of the manuscript, but 
held on to it. The longer it held on to it, the more certain I 
was that the thing was accepted. 

And here is the funny thing. Some are born to fortune, and 
some have fortune thrust upon them. But in my case I was 
clubbed into fortune, and bitter necessity wielded the club. I 
had long since abandoned all thought of writing as a career. 
My honest intention in writing that article was to earn ten 
dollars. And that was the limit of my intention. It would 
help to tide me along until I got steady employment. Had a 
vacancy occurred in the post office at that time, I should have 
jumped at it. 

* John Barleycorn, Chapter XXV. Reprinted by permission of the Cen¬ 
tury Co. 


294 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


But the vacancy did not occur, nor did a steady job; and I 
employed the time between odd jobs with writing a twenty-one- 
thousand-word serial for the “Youth’s Companion.” I turned 
it out and typed it in seven days. I fancy that was what was 
the matter with it, for it came back. 

It took some time for it to go and come, and in the mean¬ 
time I tried my hand at short stories. I sold one to the Overland 
Monthly for five dollars. The Black Cat gave me forty dollars 
for another. The Overland Monthly offered me seven dollars 
and ajialf, pay on publication, for all the stories I should 
deliver. I got my bicycle, my watch, and my father’s mackin¬ 
tosh out of pawn and rented a typewriter. Also, I paid up the 
bills I owed to the several groceries that allowed me a small 
credit. I recall the Portuguese groceryman who never permitted 
my bill to go beyond four dollars. Hopkins, another grocer, 
could not be budged beyond five dollars. 

And just then came the call from the post office to go to work. 
It placed me in a most trying predicament. The sixty-five dol¬ 
lars I could earn regularly every month was a terrible tempta¬ 
tion. I couldn’t decide what to do. And I ’ll never be able to 
forgive the postmaster of Oakland. I answered the call, and I 
talked to him like a man. I frankly told him the situation. 
It looked as if I might win out at writing. The chance was 
good, but not certain. Now, if he would pass me by and select 
the next man on the eligible list, and give me a call at the next 
vacancy- 

But he shut me off with: “Then you don’t want the posi¬ 
tion?” 

“But I do,” I protested. “Don’t you see, if you will pass me 
over this time-” 

“If you want it you will take it,” he said coldly. 

Happily for me, the cursed brutality of the man made me 
angry. 

“Very well,” I said. “I won’t take it.” 

295 




CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 
ASSIGNMENT FOR GROUP i 


Write a theme on one of these topics: 

My First Theme 

The First Letter I Ever Wrote 

My Training as a Writer 

My Chief Fault in Writing 

How I Improved My Writing 

Some Devices I Have Found Helpful in Writing 

Watching Woolly Jim Write a Theme 

The Piece of Writing I. Admire Most 

The Subjects Most Congenial for Me to Write About 

The Quality I Most Desire in My Writing 

The Kind of Writing I Shall Probably Do Most After Leaving 
School 

The Way the Average Student Writes His Themes 
Suggestions for the Improvement of This Course 
Can Writing Be Taught? 

What Is the Ideal Style? 

The Purpose of a Course in Composition 

How to Make Students Write Carefully in Courses Other Than 
English 

The Ability to Write Well as an Asset in Life 
The Inability to Write Well as a Handicap in Life. 

• 

GROUP II—BOOKS AND STUDY 

The selection from Bacon in this group presents the whole 
subject of studies briefly. The selection from Sydney Smith 
discusses the spirit one should bring to study. The selection 
from Shaler recounts the method of a great teacher in acquaint¬ 
ing a young man with the way to study. The selection from 
Ivinglake sets forth the spontaneousness of childhood reading 
and compares it with the distastefulness of forced tasks at 
school. The selection from London traces the book-hunger of 
a child and indicates that, if not directed, it may be gratified un¬ 
wisely. The selection from Ruskin contrasts the humdrum and 

296 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


limited associations we actually have with the royal associations 
we could find in books. The selection from Eliot shows that 
by sparing a little time daily for reading we may amid material 
tasks attain culture. 


OF STUDIES 

Francis Bacon 

Bacon took broad, abstract subjects, and so covered them in a 
page or two that he left no essential unexpressed. His method is 
not only inimitable; it leads, in most writing, to mere floundering 
ineffectiveness. Nevertheless we may analyze it to our advantage, 
and may even with some modifications apply it. 

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their 
chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for orna¬ 
ment is in discourse; and for ability is in the judgment and 
disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and per¬ 
haps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general coun¬ 
sels and the plots and marshalling of affairs come best from 
those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is 
sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to 
make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor * of a 
scholar. They perfect nature and are perfected by experience. 
For natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning 
by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too 
much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty 
men contemn studies, simple men admire f them, and wise men 
use them. For they teach not their own use; but that is a wis¬ 
dom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read 
not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for 
granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and con¬ 
sider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, 

* Trait, disposition. 

t Wonder at, marvel at. 

297 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


and some few to be chewed and digested,—that is, some books 
are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously,* 
and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and atten¬ 
tion. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts 
made of them by others; but that would be only in the less 
important arguments and the meaner sort of books; else distilled 
books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading 
maketh a full man, conference f a ready man, and writing an 
exact man. And therefore if a man write little he had need 
have a great memory; if he confer little he had need have a 
present J wit§; and if he read little he had need have much 
cunning to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men 
wise, poets witty, the mathematics subtle, natural philosophy 
deep, moral grave, logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt 
studia in mores ||. Nay, there is no stond ]\ or impediment in 
the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies, like as diseases 
of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good 
for the stone and reins, shooting for the lungs and breast, gentle 
walking for the stomach, riding for the head, and the like. So 
if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics, 
for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, 
he must begin again; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find 
differences, let him study the schoolmen, for they are cymini 
sectores; ** if he be not apt to beat over matters and to call up 
one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the law¬ 
yer’s cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special 
receipt. 

ASSIGNMENT 

I. Bacon compresses an astonishing amount of truth and wisdom 
into a single sentence, as “Reading maketh a full man, conference 

* Carefully. 

t Conversation, association with people. 

J Ready, swift. 

§ Judgment, knowledge 

II Studies develop into habits. 

II Stand; that is, halt. 

** Hair-splitters. 


298 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


a ready man, and writing an exact man.” Find a sentence that 
impresses you and expand it, or some portion of it, into a theme. 

2. Reread the introductory comment to the group on “Books and 
Study” (pages 296-97). Illustrate the idea brought out in any one of 
the sentences by means of a theme of your own. 

3. The following general statements are made in this book. 
Expand one of them into a theme. 

a. “Revolutions are not made by men in spectacles” (page 224). 

b. “A man [is] sometimes more generous when he has but 

little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro’ fear 
of being thought to have little” (page 149). 

c. “[We] men . . . try on two or three characters before we 

fix upon one” (page 257). 

d. “In general, we preserve three [characters] during our whole 

lives: one which we exhibit; one which we fancy we 
have; and another which we really have” (page 257). 

e. “Old associations are sure to be fragrant herbs in English 

nostrils; we [Americans] pull them up as weeds” 
(page 266). 

f. “Non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in 

exploration, in historical research [is] work of the type 
we most need in this country, the successful carrying out 
of which reflects most honor upon the nation” (page 100). 

g. “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to suc¬ 

ceed” (page 100). 

h. “To any one with senses there is always something worth 

describing” (page 290). 

i. “The art of comparing objects ... is the basis of the nat¬ 

uralist’s work” (page 303). 

j. “One of the most precious [pleasures in life is] frequent ' 

contact with quick and well-stored minds in large variety; 
[is] quickening intellectual encounters” (page 309). 

k. “Ten minutes a day devoted affectionately to good books 

. . . will in thirty years make all the difference between 
a cultivated and an uncultivated man, between a man 
mentally rich and a man mentally poor” (page 310). 

l . “That training of the intellect which is best for the individual 

himself, best enables him to discharge his duties to soci¬ 
ety” (page 312). 


299 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


m. “A practical end [of] a University course . . . is . . . train¬ 

ing good members of society” (page 312). 

n. “A University is not a birthplace of poets or of immortal 

authors, of founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or 
conquerors of nations” (page 312). 

4. The following topics are large and abstract. Write as many 
definite and concrete things as you can about one of them. Compare 
the number of your definite statements with the number made by 
Bacon in his essay. (The value of the exercise will consist largely 
in showing you how vague, loose, and unsure are your ideas upon 
large topics you think you understand.) 

Honor Liberty 

Patriotism Progress 

Morality Success 

Truth Democracy 

THE RIGHT KIND OF STUDY 
Sydney Smith 

Curiosity is a passion very favorable to the love of study, and 
a passion very susceptible of increase by cultivation. Sound 
travels so many feet in a second, and light travels so many feet 
in a second. Nothing more probable; but you do not care how 
light and sound travel. Very likely; but make yourself care; 
get up, shake yourself well, pretend to care, make believe to 
care, and very soon you will care, and care so much that you 
will sit for hours thinking about light and sound, and be ex¬ 
tremely angry with any one who interrupts you in your pursuits; 
and tolerate no other conversation but about light and sound; 
and catch yourself plaguing everybody to death who approaches 
you, with the discussion of these subjects. 

I am sure that a man ought to read as he would grasp a net¬ 
tle* do it lightly, and you get molested; grasp it with all your 
strength, and you feel none of its asperities. There is nothing 
so horrible as languid study, when you sit looking at the clock, 
wishing the time was over, or that somebody would call on you 

300 


Friendship 
Americanism 
Public Welfare. 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


and put you out of your misery. The only way to read with 
any efficacy is to read so heartily that dinner-time comes two 
hours before you expected it. 

To sit with your Livy before you, and hear the geese cackling 
that saved the Capitol; and to see with your own eyes the Car¬ 
thaginian sutlers gathering up the rings of the Roman knights 
after the battle of Cannae, and heaping them into bushels; and 
to be so intimately present at the actions you are reading of that 
when anybody knocks at the door it will take you two or three 
seconds to determine whether you are in your own study, or 
in the plains of Lombardy, looking at Hannibal’s weather¬ 
beaten face, and admiring the splendor of his single eye,— 
this is the only kind of study that is not tiresome; and almost 
the only kind which is not useless; this is the knowledge which 
gets into the system, and which a man carries about and uses 
like his limbs, without perceiving that it is extraneous, weighty, 
or inconvenient. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a theme which shall treat this same subject in a different 
way or from another point of view. 

AN ASSIGNMENT BY AGASSIZ * 

N. S. Shaler 

When I sat me down before my tin pan, Agassiz brought me 
a small fish, placing it before me with the rather stern require¬ 
ment that I should study it, but should on no account talk to 
any one concerning it, nor read anything relating to fishes, 
until I had his permission so to do. To my inquiry “What 
shall I do?” he said in effect: “Find out what you can with¬ 
out damaging the specimen; when I think that you have done 
the work I will question you.” In the course of an hour I 

* Autobiography, pages 98-99. Used by permission of. and by special arrange¬ 
ment with, Houghton Mifflin Company, the authorized publishers. 

301 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

thought I had compassed that fish; it was rather an unsavory 
object, giving forth the stench of old alcohol, then loathsome 
to me, though in time I came to like it. Many of the scales 
were loosened so that they fell off. It appeared to me to be a 
case for a summary report, which I was anxious to make and 
get on to the next stage of the business. But Agassiz, though 
always within call, concerned himself no further with me that 
day, nor the next, nor for a week. At first, this neglect was 
distressing; but I saw that it was a game, for he was, as I dis¬ 
cerned rather than saw, covertly watching me. So I set my 
wits to work upon the thing, and in the course of a hundred 
hours or so thought I had done much—a hundred times as 
much as seemed possible at the start. I got interested in 
finding out how the scales went in series, their shape, the form 
and placement of the teeth, etc. Finally, I felt full of the sub¬ 
ject and probably expressed it in my bearing; as for words 
about it then, there were none from my master except his cheery 
“Good morning.” At length on the seventh day, came the ques¬ 
tion “Well?” and my disgorge of learning to him as he sat on 
the edge of my table puffing his cigar. At the end of the hour’s 
telling, he swung off and away, saying, “That is not right.” 
Here I began to think that after all perhaps the rules for scan¬ 
ning Latin verse were not the worst infliction in the world. 
Moreover, it was clear that he was playing a game with me to 
find if I were capable of doing hard, continuous work without 
the support of a teacher, and this stimulated me to labor. I 
went at the task anew, discarded my first notes, and in another 
week of ten hours a day labor I had results which astonished 
myself and satisfied him. Still there was no trace of praise in 
words or manner. He signified that it would do by placing 
before me about a half a peck of bones, telling me to see what 
I could make of them, with no further directions to guide me. 
I soon found that they were the skeletons of half a dozen fishes 

302 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 

of different species; the jaws told me that much at a first inspec¬ 
tion. The task evidently was to fit the separate bones together 
in their proper order. Two months or more went to this task 
with no other help than an occasional looking over my grouping 
with the stereotyped remark: “That is not right.” Finally, 
the task was done and I was again set upon alcoholic speci¬ 
mens,—this time a remarkable lot of specimens representing, 
perhaps, twenty species of the side-swimmers or Pleuronectidce. 

I shall never forget the sense of power in dealing with things 
which I felt in beginning the more extended work on a group 
of animals. I had learned the art of comparing objects, which 
is the basis of the naturalist’s work. At this stage I was allowed 
to read and to discuss my work with others about me. I did 
both eagerly, and acquired a considerable knowledge of the 
literature of ichthyology, becoming especially interested in the 
system of classification, then most imperfect. I tried to follow 
Agassiz’s scheme of division into the order of ctenoids and 
ganoids, with the result that I found one of my species of side- 
swimmers had cycloid scales on one side and ctenoid on the 
other. This not only shocked my sense of the value of classi¬ 
fication in a way that permitted of no full recovery of my 
original respect for the process, but for a time shook my con¬ 
fidence in my master’s knowledge. At the same time I had a 
malicious pleasure in exhibiting my find to him, expecting to 
repay in part the humiliation which he had evidently tried to 
inflict on my conceit. To my question as to how the nondescript 
should be classified he said: “My boy, there are now two of 
us who know that.” 

This incident of the fish made an end of my novitiate. After 
that, with a suddenness of transition which puzzled me, Agassiz 
became very communicative; we passed indeed into the relation 
of friends of like age and purpose, and he actually consulted 
me as to what I should like to take up as a field of study. 

303 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a theme on one of these topics: 

The Right Way to Study 

The Most Useful Lesson Ever Taught Me 

Are Students Too Much Spoonfed? 

Can a Student Without Initiative (one who waits for the teacher 
and absorbs what is told him) Become Truly Educated? 

What Is an Educated Man? 

The Subject I Worked Up for Myself and How I Proceeded 

My Hobby and What I Do with It 

Knowing for One’s Self 

A Course in Reading I Have Laid Out for Myself 

How I Should Acquire Information on - (a subject you are 

interested in) 

Does a College Education Pay? 

MY EARLY LOVE FOR THE ILIAD * 

A. W. Kinglake 

I too, loved Homer, but not with a scholar’s love. The most 
humble and pious among women was yet so proud a mother 
that she could teach her first-born son, no Watts’s hymns, no 
collects for the day: she could teach him in earliest childhood 
no less than this—to find a home in his saddle and to love old 
Homer and all that Homer sung. True it is that the Greek was 
ingeniously rendered into English,—the English of Pope,—but 
not even a mesh like that can screen an earnest child from the 
fire .of Homer’s battles. 

I pored over the Odyssey as over a story-book, hoping and 
fearing for the hero whom yet I partly scorned. But the Iliad — 
line by line I clasped it to my brain with reverence as well as 
with love. As an old woman deeply trustful sits reading her 
Bible because of the world to come, so, as though it would fit 
me for the coming strife of this temporal world, I read and read 

* Eothen, Chapter IV. 

304 



ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


the Iliads Even outwardly it was not like other books; it was 
throned in towering folios. There was a preface or disserta¬ 
tion printed in type still more majestic than the rest of the 
book; this I read, but not till my enthusiasm for the Iliad had 
already run high. The writer, compiling the opinions of many 
men, and chiefly of the ancients, set forth, I know not how 
quaintly, that the Iliad was all in all to the human race—that 
it was history, poetry, revelation; that the works of men’s hands 
were folly and vanity, and would pass away like the dreams of 
a child, but that the kingdom of Homer would endure for ever 
and ever. 

I assented with all my soul. I read, and still read; I came 
to know Homer. A learned commentator knows something of 
the Greeks in the same sense as an oil-and-colour man may be 
said to know something of painting; but take an untamed child 
and leave him alone for twelve months with any translation of 
Homer, and he will be nearer by twenty centuries to the spirit 
of old Greece; he does not stop in the ninth year of the siege 
to admire this or that group of words; he has no books in his 
tent: but he shares in vital counsels with the “king of men,” and 
knows the inmost souls of the impending Gods. How profanely 
he exults over the powers divine when they are taught to dread 
the prowess of mortals! and most of all, how he rejoices when 
the God of War flies howling from the spear of Diomed, and 
mounts into heaven for safety! Then, the beautiful episode of 
the sixth book! The way to feel this is not to go casting about 
and learning from pastors and masters how best to admire it. 
The impatient child is not grubbing for beauties, but pushing 
the siege; the women vex him with their delays and their talk¬ 
ing; the mention of the nurse is personal, and little sympathy 
has he for the child that is young enough to be frightened at the 
nodding plume of a helmet: but all the while that he thus chafes 
at the pausing of the action, the strong vertical light of Homer’s 
poetry is blazing so full upon the people and things of the Iliad 

305 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


that soon, to the eyes of the child, they grow familiar as his 
mother’s shawl; yet of this great gain he is unconscious, and 
on he goes, vengefully thirsting for the best blood of Troy, and 
never remitting his fierceness, till almost suddenly it is changed 
for sorrow—the new and generous sorrow that he learns to feel 
when the noblest of all his foes lies sadly dying at the Scaean 
gate. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a theme on one of these topics: 

A Book That Influenced Me in My Childhood (the book need not 
be a classic) 

A Book That Captivated My Childish Imagination 

An Unpretentious Book That Has Meant Much to Me 

Literature for Children 

The Kind of Stories That Children Like 

How a Book May Influence One’s Entire Attitude to Life. 

MY EARLY READING * 

Jack London 

By the time I was ten years old, my family had abandoned 
ranching and gone to live in the city. And here, at ten, I began 
on the streets as a newsboy. One of the reasons for this was 
that we needed the money. Another reason was that I needed 
the exercise. I had found my way to the free public library, 
and was reading myself into nervous prostration. On the 
poor-ranches on which I had lived there had been no books. 
In ways truly miraculous, I had been lent four books, marvelous 
books, and them I had devoured. One was the life of Garfield; 
the second, Paul du Chaillu’s African travels; the third, a novel 
by Ouida with the last forty pages missing; and the fourth, 
Irving’s “Alhambra.” This last had been lent me by a school¬ 
teacher. I was not a forward child. Unlike Oliver Twist, I 
was incapable of asking for more. When I returned the “Al- 

* John Barleycorn, Chapter V. Reprinted by permission of the Century Co. 

306 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


hambra” to the teacher I hoped she would lend me another 
book. And because she did not—most likely she deemed me un¬ 
appreciative— I cried all the way home on the three-mile tramp 
from the school to the ranch. I waited and yearned for her to 
lend me another book. Scores of times I nerved myself almost 
to the point of asking her, but never quite reached the necessary 
pitch of effrontery. 

And then came the city of Oakland, and on the shelves of that 
free-library I discovered all the great world beyond the skyline. 
Here were thousands of books as good as my four wonder-books, 
and some were even better. Libraries were not concerned with 
children in those days, and I had strange adventures. I remem¬ 
ber, in the catalogue, being impressed by the title, “The Adven¬ 
tures of Peregrine Pickle.” I filled an application blank and 
the librarian handed me the collected and entirely unexpurgated 
Works of Smollett in one huge volume. I read everything, but 
principally history and adventure, and all the old travels and 
voyages. I read mornings, afternoons, and nights. I read in 
bed, I read at table, I read as I walked to and from school, 
and I read at recess while the other boys were playing. I began 
to get the “jerks.” To everybody I replied: “Go away. You 
make me nervous.” 

And so, at ten, I was out on the streets, a newsboy. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a theme on one of these topics: 

The Book I Tried to Borrow 

The Book I Have Always Wanted to Read 

The Book from Which the Last Chapter Was Missing 

An Overestimated Book 

What My Parents Thought About Reading 

A Book Much Discussed at Present 

My Favorite Book 

My Favorite Magazine 

A Book I Do Not Like 


307 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


A Good Book That Few People Know 
The Book I Read in the Haymow. 

CHOOSING OUR FRIENDS * 

John Ruskin 

But granting that we had both the will and the sense to 
choose our friends well, how few of us have the power! or, 
at least, how limited, for most, is the sphere of choice! Nearly 
all our associations are determined by chance or necessity; and 
restricted within a narrow circle. We cannot know whom we 
would; and those whom we know, w T e cannot have at our side 
when we most need them. All the higher circles of human 
intelligence are, to those beneath, only momentarily and par¬ 
tially open. We may, by good fortune, obtain a glimpse of a 
great poet, and hear the sound of his voice; or put a question to 
a man of science, and be answered good-humoredly. We may 
intrude ten minutes’ talk on a cabinet minister, answered prob¬ 
ably with words worse than silence, being deceptive; or snatch, 
once or twice in our lives, the privilege of throwing a bouquet 
in the path of a princess, or arresting the kind glance of a 
queen. And yet these momentary chances we covet; and spend 
our years, and passions, and powers in pursuit of little more 
than these; while, meantime, there is a society, continually open 
to us, of people who will talk to us as long as we like, whatever 
our rank or occupation;—talk to us in the best words they can 
choose, and with thanks if we listen to them. And this society, 
because it is so numerous and so gentle, and can be kept waiting 
round us all day long,—kings and statesmen lingering patiently, 
not to grant audience, but to gain it!—in those plainly furnished 
and narrow anterooms, our bookcase shelves,—we make no ac¬ 
count of that company,—perhaps never listen to a word they 
would say, all day long! 


* From Sesame and Lilies. 


308 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


ASSIGNMENT 

Write a theme on one of these topics: 
Books as Friends 

Some Books I Have Found Companionable 
The Mental Poverty of the Bookless 
A Great Man I Know Through His Books. 


THE PLEASURES OF READING * 

Charles W. Eliot 

Once, when I was talking with Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes 
about the best pleasures in life, he mentioned, as one of the 
most precious, frequent contact with quick and well-stored 
minds in large variety; he valued highly the number, frequency, 
and variety of quickening, intellectual encounters. We were 
thinking of contact in conversation; but this pleasure, if only to 
be procured by personal meetings, would obviously be within 
the reach, as a rule, of only a very limited number of persons. 
Fortunately for us and for posterity, the cheap printing-press 
has put within easy reach of every man who can read, all the 
best minds both of the past and the present. For one tenth 
part of a year’s wages a young mechanic can buy, before he 
marries, a library of famous books which, if he masters it, will 
make him a well-read man. For half-a-day’s wages a clerk can 
provide himself with a weekly paper which will keep him in¬ 
formed for a year of all important current events. Public 
libraries, circulating libraries, Sunday-school libraries, and 
book-clubs nowadays bring much reading to the door of every 
household and every solitary creature that wants to read. This 
is a new privilege for the mass of mankind; and it is an inex¬ 
haustible source of intellectual and spiritual nutriment. It 
seems as if this new privilege alone must alter the whole aspect 

* From “The Happy Life” in American Contributions to Civilisation. Re¬ 
printed by permission of the Century Co. 

309 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


of society in a few generations. Books are the quietest and most 
constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of 
counsellors, and the most patient of teachers. With his daily 
work and his books, many a man, whom the world thought 
forlorn, has found life worth living. It is a mistake to suppose 
that a great deal of leisure is necessary for this happy inter¬ 
course with books. Ten minutes a day devoted affectionately 
to good books—indeed to one book of the first order, like the 
English Bible or Shakspere, or to two or three books of the 
second order, like Etomer, Virgil, Milton, or Bacon—will in 
thirty years make all the difference between a cultivated and 
an uncultivated man, between a man mentally rich and a man 
mentally poor. The pleasures of reading are of course in good 
part pleasures of the imagination; but they are just as natural 
and actual as pleasures of sense, and are often more accessible 
and more lasting. 


ASSIGNMENT 

Write a theme on one of these topics: 

What the Public Library Means to My Community 
What the Public Library Means to Me 
Why I Sell (Don’t Sell) My Old Books 

What Volumes I Should Buy if I Had Fifty Dollars to Spend 
on Books 

What I Could Invest Two Dollars in More Satisfactorily Than in 
a Book 

Why an Investment in a Book Is an Investment in Culture 
Is the Well-Read Man Who Has Not Attended College Edu¬ 
cated ? 

The Department of Our Public Library That Needs Building Up 

The Department of My Private Library That Needs Building Up 

The Book I Would Like to Write 

The Book I Would Like to Have Written 

Why I Believe in Reading Modern Books 

Why I Believe in Reading the Standard Authors 

Why I Give Books as Presents 

310 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


The Book I Would Recommend to a Sailor 
The Book I Would Recommend to a Soldier 
The Ideal Make-Up of a Book (size, binding, type, etc.) 

The Most Useful Reference Book I ‘Know 

My Stand upon the Censuring of Books 

A Book by Which I Test People’s Taste 

Why I,Object to Motion-Pictures Being Made from Books 

Some Famous Prices Paid for First Editions 

The Way to Care for Books Properly 

The Way Not to Treat Books 

Why I Always Read the Preface of a Book 

Ways in Which My Books Are Lost. 

GROUP III—EDUCATION AND CULTURE 

CULTURE NOT DISDAIN * 

William James 

We of the colleges must eradicate a curious notion which 
numbers of good people have about such ancient seats of learn¬ 
ing as Harvard. To many ignorant outsiders, that name sug¬ 
gests little more than a kind of sterilized conceit and incapacity 
for being pleased. In Edith Wyatt’s exquisite book of Chicago 
sketches called “Every One His Own Way” there is a couple 
who stand for culture in the sense of exclusiveness, Richard 
Elliot and his feminine counterpart—feeble caricatures of man¬ 
kind, unable to know any good thing when they see it, incapable 
of enjoyment unless a printed label gives them leave. Possibly 
this type of culture may exist near Cambridge and Boston. 
There may be specimens there, for priggishness is just like 
painter’s colic or any other trade-disease. But every good 
college makes its students immune against this malady, of 
which the microbe haunts the neighborhood of printed pages. 
It does so by its general tone being too hearty for the microbe’s 

* From “The Social Value of the College Bred’* in Memories and Studies. 
Reprinted by permission of Longmans, Green & Co. 

311 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


life. Real culture lives by sympathies and admirations, not 
by dislikes and disdains; under all misleading wrappings it 
pounces unerringly upon the human core. If a college, through 
the inferior human influences that have grown regnant there, 
fails to catch the robuster tone, its failure is colossal, for its 
social function stops: democracy gives it a wide berth, turns 
toward it a deaf ear. 

AIM OF A UNIVERSITY COURSE * 

Cardinal Newman 

To-day I have confined myself to saying that that training of 
the intellect, which is best for the individual himself, best 
enables him to discharge his duties to society. The Philosopher, 
indeed, and the man of the world differ in their very notion, 
but the methods, by which they are respectively formed, are 
pretty much the same. The Philosopher has the same command 
of matters of thought, which the true citizen and gentleman 
has of matters of business and conduct. If then a practical 
end must be assigned to a University course, I say it is that of 
training good members of society. Its art is the art of social 
life, and its end is fitness for the world. It neither confines its 
views to particular professions on the one hand, nor creates 
heroes or inspires genius on the other. Works indeed of genius 
fall under no art; heroic minds come under no rule; a University 
is not a birthplace of poets or of immortal authors, of founders 
of schools, leaders of colonies, or conquerors of nations. It 
does not promise a generation of Aristotles or Newtons, of Napo¬ 
leons or Washingtons, of Raphaels or Shakespeares, though 
such miracles of nature it has before now contained within its 
precincts. Nor is it content on the other hand with forming 
the critic or the experimentalist, the economist or the engineer, 
though such too it includes within its scope. But a University 
training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary 

* From “Idea of a University.” 

312 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 

end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society, at 
cultivating the public mind, at purifying the national taste, at 
supplying true principles to popular enthusiasm and fixed aims 
to popular aspiration, at giving enlargement and sobriety to 
the ideas of the age, at facilitating the exercise of political 
power, and refining the intercourse of private life. It is the 
education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his 
own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an 
eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them. It 
teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, 
to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, 
and to discard what is irrelevant. It prepares him to fill any 
post with credit, and to master any subject with facility. It 
shows him how to accommodate himself to others, how to throw 
himself into their state of mind, how to bring before them his 
own, how to influence them, how to come to an understanding 
with them, how to bear with them. He is at home in any 
society, he has common ground with every class; he knows when 
to speak and when to be silent; he is able to converse, he is able 
to listen; he can ask a question pertinently, and gain a lesson 
seasonably, when he has nothing to impart himself; he is ever 
ready, yet never in the way; he is a pleasant companion, and a 
comrade you can depend upon; he knows when to be serious and 
when to trifle, and he has a sure tact which enables him to 
trifle with gracefulness and to be serious with effect. He has 
the repose of a mind which lives in itself, while it lives in the 
world, and which has resources for its happiness at home when 
it cannot go abroad. He has a gift which serves him in public, 
and supports him in retirement, without which good fortune is 
but vulgar, and with which failure and disappointment have a 
charm. The art which tends to make a man all this, is in the 
object which it pursues as useful as the art of wealth or the 
art of health, though it is less susceptible of method, and less 
tangible, less certain, less complete, in its results. 

3i3 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


THE ADJUSTMENT OF ONE’S SELF TO 
CONDITIONS * 

Woodrow Wilson 

Adjustment is exactly what a man gains when he comes to 
himself. Some men gain it late, some early; some get it all at 
once, as if by one distinct act of deliberate accommodation; 
others get it by degrees and quite imperceptibly. No doubt to 
most men it comes by the slow process of experience—at each 
stage of life a little. A college man feels the first shock of it 
at graduation, when the boy’s life has been lived out and the 
man’s life suddenly begins. He has measured himself with 
boys; he knows their code and feels the spur of their ideals of 
achievement. But what the world expects of him he has yet 
to find out, and it w 7 orks, when he has discovered it, a veritable 
revolution in his ways both of thought and of action. He finds 
a new sort of fitness demanded of him, executive, thoroughgoing, 
careful of details, full of drudgery and obedience to orders. 
Everybody is ahead of him. Just now he was a senior, at the 
top of a world he knew and reigned in, a finished product and 
pattern of good form. Of a sudden he is a novice again, as 
green as in his first school year, studying a thing that seems to 
have no rules—at sea amid cross-winds, and a bit seasick withal. 
Presently, if he be made of stuff that will shake into shape and 
fitness, he settles to his tasks and is comfortable. He has come 
to himself: understands what capacity is, and what it is meant 
for; sees that his training was not for ornament or personal 
gratification, but to teach him how to use himself and develop 
faculties worth using. Henceforth there is a zest in action, and 
he loves to see his strokes tell. 

* When a Man Comes to Himself, pages 7-9. Reprinted by permission of 
Harper & Bros. 


314 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


MY BELATED EDUCATION * 

Jack London 

In the course of my tramping over the United States I 
achieved a new concept. As a tramp, I was behind the scenes 
of society—ay, and down in the cellar. I could watch the ma¬ 
chinery work. I saw the wheels of the social machine go around, 
and I learned that the dignity of manual labor was n’t what I 
had been told it was by the teachers, preachers, and politicians. 
The men without trades were helpless cattle. If one learned a 
trade, he was compelled to belong to a union in order to work 
at his trade. And his union was compelled to bully and slug 
the employers’ unions in order to hold up wages or hold down 
hours. The employers’ unions likewise bullied and slugged. 
I could n’t see any dignity at all. And when a workman got old, 
or had an accident, he was thrown into the scrap-heap like any 
worn-out machine. I saw too many of this sort who were 
making anything but dignified ends of life. 

So my new concept was that manual labor was undignified, 
and that it did n’t pay. No trade for me, was my decision, and 
no superintendent’s daughter. And no criminality, I also de¬ 
cided. That would be almost as disastrous as to be a laborer. 
Brains paid, not brawn, and I resolved never again to offer my 
muscles for sale in the brawn market. Brain, and brain only, 
would I sell. 

I returned to California with the firm intention of developing 
my brain. This meant school education. I had gone through 
the grammar school long ago, so I entered the Oakland High 
School. To pay my way, I worked as a janitor. My sister 
helped me, too; and I was not above mowing anybody’s lawn 
or taking up and beating carpets when I had half a Hay to 

* John Barleycorn, Chapters XXI and XXII. Reprinted by permission of 
the Century Co. 


315 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


spare. I was working to get away from work, and I buckled 

down to it with a grim realization of the paradox. 

• ••••• • * 

Three years was the time required to go through high school. 
I grew impatient. Also, my schooling was becoming financially 
impossible. At such rate I could not last out, and I did greatly 
want to go to the state university. When I had done a year of 
high school, I decided to attempt a short cut. I borrowed the 
money and paid to enter the senior class of a “cramming joint” 
or academy. I was scheduled to graduate right into the uni¬ 
versity at the end of four months, thus saving two years. 

And how I did cram! I had two years’ new work to do in 
a third of a year. For five weeks I crammed, until simultaneous 
quadratic equations and chemical formulas fairly oozed from 
my ears. And then the master of the academy took me aside. 
He was very sorry, but he was compelled to give me back my 
tuition fee and to ask me to leave the school. It was n’t a mat¬ 
ter of scholarship. I stood well in my classes, and did he 
graduate me into the university he was confident that in that 
institution I would continue to stand well. The trouble was 
that tongues were gossiping about my case. What! In four 
months accomplish two years’ work! It would be a scandal, and 
the universities were becoming severer in their treatment of 
accredited prep schools. He could n’t afford such a scandal, 
therefore I must gracefully depart. 

I did. And I paid back the borrowed money, and gritted 
my teeth, and started to cram by myself. There were three 
months yet before the university entrance-examinations. With¬ 
out laboratories, without coaching, sitting in my bedroom, I 
proceeded to compress that two years’ work into three months 
and to keep reviewed on the previous year’s work. 

Nineteen hours a day I studied. For three months I kept 
this pace, only breaking it on several occasions. My body grew 
weary, my mind grew weary, but I stayed with it. My eyes 

316 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


grew weary and began to twitch, but they did not break down. 
Perhaps, toward the last, I got a bit dotty. I know that at the 
time I was confident I had discovered the formula for squaring 
the circle; but I resolutely deferred the working of it out until 
after the examinations. Then I would show them. 

Came the several days of examinations, during which time 1 
scarcely closed my eyes in sleep, devoting every moment to 
cramming and reviewing. And when I turned in my last ex¬ 
amination paper I was in full possession of a splendid case of 
brain-fag. I did n’t want to see a book. I did n’t want to 
think nor to lay eyes on anybody who was liable to think. 

ASSIGNMENT FOR GROUP III 

1. Analyze the method of approach to the subject in each of the 
selections in this group. Make a list of other possible methods. 

2. Write a theme on one of these topics: 

Educational Snobs 

Are College Men Democrats? 

What Noblesse Oblige Implies for the Student 
Training for Service in Life 

The Power to Ignore Non-Essentials as the Mark of a Trained 
Mind 

The Tolerance of the Truly Educated 
After Graduation, What? 

What Sort of Job Befits the Graduate? 

Making a Start 

Why I Decided to Get an Education 
Obtaining an Education Under Difficulties 
Grandfather’s Ideas of Education 
A Defect in This School 

Does Educational Training in America To-day Make for Real 
Culture? 

Old-Fashioned vs. Present-Day Educational Methods 

A Fault in Educational Methods To-day 

Are Our Intelligence Tests Fair and Well-Balanced? 

The Crankiest Pedagogue I Ever Saw 
English vs. American Colleges 

317 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


The American vs. the German (French) Educational System. 

3. Adapt your material successively to different audiences as 
called for in one of the following: 

Explain the superiority of yo>ur school to all others (a) to pros¬ 
pective students, (b) to its alumni in a distant city, (c) in a 
toast at a banquet given by your friends in a rival school. 

Discuss the advantages of college education, having for your 
audience (a) students just entering college, (b) students you 
are trying to interest in going to college, (c) a hard-headed 
business man whom you are soliciting for a contribution to 
the endowment fund. 

Urge the advantages of a change in the curriculum upon (a) your 
classmates, (b) the faculty in general, (c) the teacher whose 
courses would no longer be required. 

Urge the erection of a new school building in an address (a) to 
clubwomen who have no satisfactory clubhouse, (b) tax¬ 
payers with children, (c) taxpayers without children. 

Give an account of your year at school to (a) your parents, (b) 
your boyhood chum, (c) a child, (d) the editor of your 
home paper. 


GROUP IV—WAR 

THE CAUSES OF WAR * 

Jonathan Swift 

He asked me what were the usual causes or motives that 
made one country go to war with another. I answered they were 
innumerable; but I should only mention a few of the chief. 
Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have 
land or people enough to govern; sometimes the corruption of 
ministers, who engage their master in a war in order to stifle or 
divert the clamor of the subjects against their evil administra¬ 
tion. Difference in opinion has cost many millions of lives: 
for instance, whether flesh be bread, or bread be flesh f; whether 
the juice of a certain berry be blood or wine; whether whistling 

* Gulliver’s Travels, Book IV, Chapter V. 
t The doctrine of transubstantiation. 

318 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


be a vice or a virtue *; whether it be better to kiss a post, or 
- throw it into the href; what is the best color for a coat |, 
whether black, white* red, or gray; and whether it should be long 
or short, narrow or wide, dirty or clean; with many more. 
Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long contin¬ 
uance, as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if 
it be in things indifferent. 

Sometimes the quarrel between two princes is to decide 
which of them shall dispossess a third of his dominions, where 
neither of them pretends to any right. Sometimes one prince 
quarrels with another, for fear the other should quarrel with 
him. Sometimes a war is entered upon, because the enemy is 
too strong, and sometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes 
our neighbors want the things which we have, or have the things 
which we want; and we both fight, till they take ours or give us 
theirs. It is a very justifiable cause of a war to invade a coun¬ 
try after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed by 
pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves. It is 
justifiable to enter into war against our nearest ally, when one 
of his towns lies convenient for us, or a territory of land, that 
would render our dominions round and compact. If a prince 
sends forces into a nation, where the people are poor and igno¬ 
rant, he may lawfully put half of them to death, and make 
slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from 
their barbarous way of living. It is a very kingly, honorable, 
and frequent practice, when one prince desires the assistance 
of another to secure him against an invasion, that the assistant, 
when he hath driven out the invader, should seize on the domin¬ 
ions himself, and kill, imprison, or banish the prince he came 
to relieve. Alliance by blood or marriage, is a frequent cause 
of war between princes; and the nearer the kindred is, the greater 
their disposition to quarrel: poor nations are hungry, and rich 

* Church music. 

t Kissing the crucifix. 

j Various sacred vestments betokened the various ecclesiastical orders. 

319 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


nations are proud; and pride and hunger will ever be at vari¬ 
ance. For these reasons, the trade of a soldier is held the most 
honorable of all others, because a soldier is a Yahoo hired to 
kill in cold blood as many of his own species, who never offended 
him, as possibly he can. 

THE FOLLY OF WAR * 

Thomas Carlyle 

What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net pur¬ 
port and upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for example, 
there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, usually 
some five hundred souls. From these, by certain “Natural 
Enemies” of the French, there are successively selected, during 
the French war, say thirty able-bodied men: Dumdrudge, at her 
own expense, has suckled and nursed them; she has, not without 
difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even trained 
them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another 
hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoir¬ 
dupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they 
are selected; all dressed in red; and shipped away, at the 
public charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the 
south of Spain; and fed there till wanted. And now to that 
same spot in the south of Spain, are thirty similar French 
artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner wending: 
till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties come into 
actual juxtaposition; and Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each 
with a gun in his hand. Straightway the word “Fire!” is given: 
and they blow the souls out of one another; and in place of sixty 
brisk useful craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcasses, 
which it must bury, and anew shed tears for. Had these men 
any quarrel? Busy as the Devil is, not the smallest! They 
lived far enough apart; were the entirest strangers; nay, in so 

* Sartor Resartus, Book II, Chapter VIII. 

320 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


wide a Universe, there was even, unconsciously, by Commerce, 
some mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton! 
their Governors had fallen out; and, instead of shooting one 
another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot. 
Alas, so is it in Deutschland, and hitherto in all other lands; 
still as of old, “what deviltry soever Kings do, the Greeks must 
pay the piper!” 

THE NON-MILITARY DISCIPLINE OF 
COMMUNITIES * 

William James 

The war-party is assuredly right in affirming and reaffirm¬ 
ing that the martial virtues, although originally gained by the 
race through war, are absolute and permanent human goods. 
Patriotic pride and ambition in their military form are, after 
all, only specifications of a more general competitive passion. 
They are its first form, but that is no reason for supposing 
them to be its last form. Men now are proud of belonging 
to a conquering nation, and without a murmur they lay down 
their persons and their wealth, if by so doing they may fend 
off subjection. But who can be sure that other aspects of one's 
country may not, with time and education and suggestion enough, 
come to be regarded with similarly effective feelings of pride and 
shame? Why should men not some day feel that it is worth 
a blood-tax to belong to a collectivity superior in any ideal 
respect? Why should they not blush with indignant shame if 
the community that owns them is vile in any way whatsoever? 
Individuals, daily more numerous, now feel this civic passion. 
It is only a question of blowing on the spark till the whole 
population gets incandescent, and on the ruins of the old 
morals of military honor, a stable system of morals of civic 

* From “The Moral Equivalent of War” in Memories and Studies. Re¬ 
printed by permission of Longmans, Green & Co. 

321 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


honor builds itself up. What the whole community comes to 
believe in grasps the individual as in a vise. The war-function 
has grasped us so far; but constructive interests may some day 
seem no less imperative, and impose on the individual a hardly 
lighter burden. 

Let me illustrate my idea more concretely. There is nothing 
to make one indignant in the mere fact that life is hard, that 
men should toil and suffer pain. The planetary conditions 
once for all are such, and we can stand it. But that so many 
men, by mere accidents of birth and opportunity, should have 
a life of nothing else but toil and pain and hardness and in¬ 
feriority imposed upon them, should have no vacation, while 
others natively no more deserving never get any taste of this 
campaigning life at all ,—this is capable of arousing indigna¬ 
tion in reflective minds. It may end by seeming shameful to 
all of us that some of us have nothing but campaigning, and 
others nothing but unmanly ease. If now—and this is my idea 
—there were, instead of military conscription a conscription of 
the whole youthful population to form for a certain number of 
years a part of the army enlisted against Nature, the injustice 
would tend to be evened out, and numerous other goods to the 
commonwealth would follow. The military ideals of hardihood 
and discipline would be wrought into the growing fibre of the 
people; no one would remain blind as the luxurious classes now 
are blind, to man’s relations to the globe he lives on, and to the 
permanently sour and hard foundations of his higher life. To 
coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in Decem¬ 
ber, to dishwashing, clothes-washing, and window-washing, to 
road-building and tunnel-making, to foundries and stoke-holes, 
and to the frames of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be 
drafted off, according to their choice, to get the childishness 
knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier 
sympathies and soberer ideas. They would have paid their 
blood-tax, done their own part in the immemorial human warfare 

322 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


against nature; they would tread the earth more proudly, the 
women would value them more highly, they would be better 
fathers and teachers of the following generation. 

Such a conscription, with the state of public opinion that 
would have required it, and the many moral fruits it would 
bear, would preserve in the midst of a pacific civilization the 
manly virtues which the military party is so afraid of seeing 
disappear in peace. We should get toughness without callous¬ 
ness, authority with as little criminal cruelty as possible, and 
painful work done cheerily because the duty is temporary, and 
threatens not, as now, to degrade the whole remainder of one’s 
life. I spoke of the “moral equivalent” of war. So far, war 
has been the only force that can discipline a whole community, 
and until an equivalent discipline is organized, I believe that 
war must have its way. But I have no serious doubt that the 
ordinary prides and shames of social man, once developed 
to a certain intensity, are capable of organizing such a moral 
equivalent as I have sketched, or some other just as effective 
for preserving manliness of type. It is but a question of time, 
of skilful propagandism, and of opinion-making men seizing 
historic opportunities. 

WAR THE INEVITABLE OUTGROWTH OF THE 
COMPLEXITIES OF LIFE * 

W. G. Sumner 

In the struggle for existence a man is wrestling with nature 
to extort from her the means of subsistence. When two men 
are striving side by side in the struggle for existence, they come 
into rivalry, and a collision of interest takes place. This col¬ 
lision may be light and unimportant, if the supplies are large 
and the number of men small; or it may be harsh and violent, 

* From War and Other Essays. Reprinted by permission of the Yale Uni¬ 
versity Press. 


323 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


if there are many men striving for a small supply. This col¬ 
lision we call the competition of life. The greater or less in¬ 
tensity of the competition of life is a fundamental condition of 
human existence, and the competition arises between those ulti¬ 
mate unit-groups which I have described. The members of 
the unit-group work together. The Australian hunter goes 
abroad to seek meat food, while the woman stays by the fire 
at a trysting place, with the children, and collects plant food. 
They cooperate in the struggle for existence, and the size of 
the group is fixed by the number who can work together to the 
greatest advantage under their mode of life. Such a group, 
therefore, has a common interest. It must have control of a 
certain area of land; hence it comes into collision of interest 
with every other group. The competition of life, therefore, arises 
between groups, not between individuals; and we see that the 
members of the “in-group” are allies and joint partners in one 
interest, while they are brought into antagonism of interest with 
all outsiders. It is the competition of life, therefore, which 
makes war, and that is why war always has existed and always 
will exist. It is in the conditions of human existence. 

ASSIGNMENT FOR GROUP IV 

1. Analyze the mood, thought, and method of treatment of each 
selection in this group. Contrast the selections with reference to 
these matters. 

2. Write a theme on one of these topics: 

Present-Day Causes of War 
The Relation of Civilized to Uncivilized Races 
How War Affects the Laboring Man 
How War Affects the Capitalist 
Women in Modern War 

Can the Profiteer in Time of War Be Suppressed? 

What the War Cost Our Community 
An Enterprise My Community (Group, Class) Should Engage In 
Is the Present Organization of the World Such as to Lead to 
Another Great War? 



324 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


How the Next War Will Be Conducted 
The Next Step toward International Peace 
Must War Be Followed by Political, Economic, Social, and Moral 
Reaction ? 

A Military Organization as the Embodiment of the Spirit of 
Feudalism 

The Most Sensible Idea I Ever Heard about War 
The Finest Piece of Wartime Self-Sacrifice I Know Of 
My Favorite Military Hero. 


GROUP V—HUNTING 

THE BUFFALO OF PIONEER DAYS* 

Francis Parkman 

These two selections are both from the same book and chapter. 
They treat the same general subject. One, however, is expository, 
while the other is narrative. 

1. The Two Methods of Hunting Buffalo 

The country before us was now thronged with buffalo, and a 
sketch of the manner of hunting them will not be out of place. 
There are two methods commonly practised, “running” and 
“approaching.” The chase on horseback, which goes by the 
name of “running,” is the more violent and dashing of the two, 
that is to say, when the buffalo are in one of their wild moods; 
for otherwise it is tame enough. A practised and skilful hunter, 
well mounted, will sometimes kill five or six cows in a single 
chase, loading his gun again and again as his horse rushes 
through the tumult. In attacking a small band of buffalo, or 
in separating a single animal from the herd and assailing it 
apart from the rest, there is less excitement and less danger. 
In fact, the animals are at times so stupid and lethargic that 

* The Oregon Trail, chapter XXIV. 

325 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


there is little sport in killing them. With a bold and well- 
trained horse the hunter may ride so close to the buffalo that as 
they gallop side by side he may touch him with his hand; nor 
is there much danger in this as long as the buffalo’s strength 
and breath continue unabated; but when he becomes tired and 
can no longer run with ease, when his tongue lolls out and the 
foam flies from his jaws, then the hunter had better keep a 
more respectful distance; the distressed brute may turn upon him 
at any instant; and especially at the moment when he fires his 
gun. The horse then leaps aside, and the hunter has need of 
a tenacious seat in the saddle, for if he is thrown to the ground 
there is no hope for him. When he sees his attack defeated the 
buffalo resumes his flight, but if the shot is well directed he 
soon stops; for a few moments he stands still, then totters and 
falls heavily upon the prairie. 

The chief difficulty in running buffalo, as it seems to me, is 
that of loading the gun or pistol at full gallop. Many hunters 
for convenience’ sake carry three or four bullets in the mouth; 
the powder is poured down the muzzle of the piece, the bullet 
dropped in after it, the stock struck hard upon the pommel 
of the saddle, and the work is done. The danger of this is 
obvious. Should the blow on the pommel fail to send the bullet 
home, or should the bullet in the act of aiming, start from its 
place and roll towards the muzzle, the gun would probably 
burst in discharging. Many a shattered hand and worse cas¬ 
ualties beside have been the result of such an accident. To 
obviate it, some hunters make use of a ramrod, usually hung by 
a string from the neck, but this materially increases the diffi¬ 
culty of loading. The bows and arrows which the Indians use 
in running buffalo have many advantages over firearms, and 
even white men occasionally employ them. 

The danger of the chase arises not so much from the onset 
of the wounded animal as from the nature of the ground which 
the hunter must ride over. The prairie does not always present 

326 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


a smooth, level, and uniform surface; very often it is broken 
with hills and hollows, intersected by ravines, and in the re¬ 
moter parts studded by the stiff wild-sage bushes. The most 
formidable obstructions, however, are the burrows of wild 
animals, wolves, badgers, and particularly prairie-dogs, with 
whose holes the ground for a very great extent is frequently 
honeycombed. In the blindness of the chase the hunter rushes 
over it unconscious of danger; his horse, at full career, thrusts 
his leg deep into one of the burrows; the bone snaps, the rider 
is hurled forward to the ground and probably killed. Yet acci¬ 
dents in buffalo running happen less frequently than one would 
suppose; in the recklessness of the chase, the hunter enjoys all 
the impunity of a drunken man, and may ride in safety over 
gullies and declivities, where, should he attempt to pass in his 
sober senses, he would infallibly break his neck. 

The method of “approaching,” being practised on foot, has 
many advantages over that of “running”; in the former, one 
neither breaks down his horse nor endangers his own life; he 
must be cool, collected, and watchful; must understand the 
buffalo, observe the features of the country and the course 
of the wind, and be well skilled in using the rifle. The buffalo 
are strange animals; sometimes they are so stupid and infatuated 
that a man may walk up to them in full sight on the open 
prairie, and even shoot several of their number before the 
rest will think it necessary to retreat. At another moment they 
will be so shy and wary, that in order to approach them the 
utmost skill, experience, and judgment are necessary. Kit 
Carson, I believe, stands pre-eminent in running buffalo; in 
approaching, no man living can bear away the palm from Henry 
Chatillon. 

2. A Buffalo Hunt 

We had gone scarcely a mile when we saw an imposing spec¬ 
tacle. From the river bank on the right, away over the swelling 

327 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


prairie, and in front as far as the eye could reach, was one vast 
host of buffalo. The outskirts of the herd were within a 
quarter of a mile. In many parts they were crowded so densely 
together that in the distance their rounded backs presented a 
surface of uniform blackness; but elsewhere they were more 
scattered, and from amid the multitude rose little columns of 
dust where some of them were rolling on the ground. Here and 
there a battle was going forward among the bulls. We could 
distinctly see them rushing against each other, and hear the 
clattering of their horns and their hoarse bellowing. Shaw was 
riding at some distance in advance, with Henry Chatillon: I 
saw him stop and draw the leather covering from his gun. With 
such a sight before us, but one thing could be thought of. That 
morning I had used pistols in the chase. I had now a mind 
to try the virtue of a gun. Deslauriers had one, and I rode up 
to the side of the cart; there he sat under the white covering, 
biting his pipe between his teeth and grinning with excitement. 

“Lend me your gun, Deslauriers.” 

“Oui, Monsieur, oui,” said Deslauriers,- tugging with might 
and main to stop the mule, which seemed obstinately bent on 
going forward. Then every thing but his moccasins disappeared 
as he crawled into the cart and pulled at the gun to extricate it. 

“Is it loaded?” I asked. 

“Oui, bien charge; you’ll kill, mon bourgeois; yes, you’ll 
kill—c’est un bon fusil.” 

I handed him my rifle and rode forward to Shaw. 

“Are you ready?” he asked. 

“Come on,” said I. 

“Keep down that hollow,” said Henry, “and then they won’t 
see you till you get close to them.” 

The hollow was a kind of wide ravine; it ran obliquely 
towards the buffalo, and we rode at a canter along the bottom 
until it became too shallow; then we bent close to our horses’ 
necks, and, at last, finding that it could no longer conceal us, 

328 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


came out of it and rode directly towards the herd. It was within 
gunshot; before its outskirts, numerous grizzly old bulls were 
scattered, holding guard over their females. They glared at 
us in anger and astonishment, walked towards us a few yards, 
and then turning slowly round retreated at a trot which after¬ 
wards broke into a clumsy gallop. In an instant the main body 
caught the alarm. The buffalo began to crowd away from the 
point towards which we were approaching, and a gap was opened 
in the side of the herd. We entered it, still restraining our 
excited horses. Every instant the tumult was thickening. The 
buffalo, pressing together in large bodies, crowded away from 
us on every hand. In front and on either side we could see 
dark columns and masses, half hidden by clouds of dust, rushing 
along in terror and confusion, and hear the tramp and clattering 
of ten thousand hoofs. That countless multitude of powerful 
brutes, ignorant of their own strength, were flying in a panic 
from the approach of two feeble horsemen. To remain quiet 
longer was impossible. 

“Take that band on the left,” said Shaw; “I ’ll take these 
in front.” 

He sprang off, and I saw no more of him. A heavy Indian 
whip was fastened by a band to my waist; I swung it into the 
air and lashed my horse’s flank with all the strength of my arm. 
Away she darted, stretching close to the ground. I could see 
nothing but a cloud of dust before me, but I knew that it con¬ 
cealed a band of many hundreds of buffalo. In a moment I 
was in the midst of the cloud, half suffocated by the dust and 
stunned by the trampling of the flying herd; but I was drunk 
with the chase and cared for nothing but the buffalo Very 
soon a long dark mass became visible, looming through the dusk; 
then I could distinguish each bulky carcass, the hoofs flying 
out beneath, the short tails held rigidly erect. In a moment I 
was so close that I could have touched them with my gun. 
Suddenly, to my amazement, the hoofs were jerked upwards, 

329 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

the tails flourished in the air, and amid a cloud of dust the 
buffalo seemed to sink into the earth before me. One vivid 
impression of that instant remains upon my mind. I remember 
looking down upon the backs of several buffalo dimly visible 
through the dust. We had run unawares upon a ravine. At 
that moment I was not the most accurate judge of depth and 
width, but when I passed it on my return, I found it about 
twelve feet deep and not quite twice as wide at the bottom. 
It was impossible to stop; I would have done so gladly if I 
could; so, half sliding, half plunging, down went the little 
mare. She came down on her knees in the loose sand at the 
bottom; I was pitched forward against her neck and nearly 
thrown over her head among the buffalo, who amid dust and 
confusion came tumbling in all around. The mare was on her 
feet in an instant and scrambling like a cat up the opposite 
side. I thought for a moment that she would have fallen 
back and crushed me, but with a violent effort she clambered 
out and gained the hard prairie above. Glancing back I saw 
the huge head of a bull clinging as it were by the forefeet at 
the edge of the dusty gulf. At length I was fairly among the 
buffalo. They were less densely crowded than before, and I 
could see nothing but bulls, who always run at the rear of a 
herd to protect their females. As I passed among them they 
would lower their heads, and turning as they ran, try to gore 
my horse; but as they were already at full speed there was no 
force in their onset, and as Pauline ran faster than they, they 
were always thrown behind her in the effort. I soon began to 
distinguish cows amid the throng. One just in front of me 
seemed to my liking, and I pushed close to her side. Dropping 
the reins I fired, holding the muzzle of the gun within a foot 
of her shoulder. Quick as lightning she sprang at Pauline; 
the little mare dodged the attack, and I lost sight of the wounded 
animal amid the tumult. Immediately after, I selected another, 
and urging forward Pauline, shot into her both pistols in suc- 

330 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


cession. For a while I kept her in view, but in attempting to 
load my gun, lost sight of her also in the confusion. Believing 
her to be mortally wounded and unable to keep up with the 
herd, I checked my horse. The crowd rushed onwards. The 
dust and tumult passed away, and on the prairie, far behind 
the rest, I saw a solitary buffalo galloping heavily. In a moment 
I and my victim were running side by side. My firearms were 
all empty, and I had in my pouch nothing but rifle bullets, 
too large for the pistols and too small for the gun. I loaded 
the gun, however, but as often as I levelled it to fire, the bullets 
would roll out of the muzzle and the gun returned only a report 
like a squib, as the powder harmlessly exploded. I rode in front 
of the buffalo and tried to turn her back; but her eyes glared, 
her mane bristled, and, lowering her head, she rushed at me 
with the utmost fierceness and activity. Again and again I 
rode before her, and again and again she repeated her furious 
charge. But little Pauline was in her element. She dodged 
her enemy at every rush, until at length the buffalo stood 
still, exhausted with her own efforts, her tongue lolling from 
her jaws. 

Riding to a little distance, I dismounted, thinking to gather 
a handful of dry grass to serve the purpose of wadding, and load 
the gun at my leisure. No sooner were my feet on the ground 
than the buffalo came bounding in such a rage towards me that 
I jumped back again into the saddle with all possible despatch. 
After waiting a few minutes more, I made an attempt to ride 
up and stab her with my knife; but Pauline was near being 
gored in the attempt. At length, bethinking me of the fringes 
at the seams of my buckskin trousers, I jerked off a few of them, 
and, reloading the gun, forced them down the barrel to keep the 
bullet in its place; then approaching, I shot the wounded buffalo 
through the heart. Sinking to her knees, she rolled over lifeless 
on the prairie. To my astonishment, I found that, instead of a 
cow, I had been slaughtering a stout yearling bull. No longer 

33i 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


wondering at his fierceness, I opened his throat, and cutting 
out his tongue, tied it at the back of my saddle. My mistake 
was one which a more experienced eye than mine might easily 
make in the dust and confusion of such a chase. 

Then for the first time I had leisure to look at the scene 
around me. The prairie in front was darkened with the re¬ 
treating multitude, and on either hand the buffalo came filing 
up in endless columns from the low plains upon the river. The 
Arkansas was three or four miles distant. I turned and moved 
slowly towards it. 

HUNTING BIG GAME IN AFRICA * 

J. H. Patterson 

These three selections are excellent examples of easy informal 
writing. Note the complete absence of any attempt to be “literary,” 
either in vocabulary or style,—the effect is that the events are told 
rather than written. Since the events are related as they happened, 
the connectives are mostly those of time. Read through each selec¬ 
tion pointing out these connectives and all the words and phrases 
denoting time. How is variety attained? Observe how you are 
made to feel the rapid passing of time when the author’s narrative 
cannot keep up with the events. Now to see with what skill mo¬ 
notony has been avoided, read through each selection substituting 
wherever possible the usual “and then” of students’ themes. Note 
how mediocre, even childish, the narratives have become. 

l. Shooting a Hippopotamus 

After an early dinner, which Mabruki soon got ready, I left 
my followers encamped in a safe boma a mile away from the 
river, and started out with Mahina to find a suitable tree, near a 
hippo “run,” in which to spend the night. Having some diffi¬ 
culty in finding a likely spot, we crossed to the other side of the 
river—rather a risky thing to do on account of the number of 
crocodiles in it: we found a fairly shallow ford, however, and 

* From The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, chapters XII, XVII, and XXIV. Pub¬ 
lished by The Macmillan Co., Limited, London. 

332 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


managed to get safely over. Here, on what was evidently an 
island during flood time, we found innumerable traces of both 
hippo and rhino—in fact the difficulty was to decide which track 
was the best and freshest. At length I picked out a tree close to 
the river and commanding a stretch of sand which was all 
flattened down and looked as if at least one hippo rolled there 
regularly every night. . . . 

By the light of a splendid full moon we settled ourselves on a 
great outspreading branch, and commenced our vigil. Soon the 
jungle around us began to be alive with its peculiar sounds—a 
night bird would call, a crocodile shut his jaws with a snap, or 
a rhino or hippo crash through the bushes on its way to the 
water: now and again we could even hear the distant roar of the 
lion. Still there was nothing to be seen. 

After waiting for some considerable time, a great hippo at last 
made his appearance and came splashing along in our direction, 
but unfortunately took up his position behind a tree which, in 
the most tantalizing way, completely hid him from view. Here 
he stood tooting and snorting and splashing about to his heart’s 
content. For what seemed hours I watched for this ungainly 
creature to emerge from his covert, but as he seemed determined 
not to show himself I lost patience and made up my mind to go 
down after him. I therefore handed my rifle to Mahina to lower 
to me on reaching the ground, and began to descend carefully, 
holding on by the creepers which encircled the tree. To my 
intense vexation and disappointment, just as I was in this 
helpless condition, half-way to the ground, the great hippo 
suddenly came out from his shelter and calmly lumbered along 
right underneath me. I bitterly lamented my ill-luck and want 
of patience, for I could almost have touched his broad back as 
he passed. It was under these exasperating conditions that I 
saw a hippo for the first time, and without doubt he is the 
ugliest and most forbidding brute I have ever beheld. 

The moment the great beast had passed our tree, he scented us, 

333 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


snorted loudly, and dived into the bushes close by, smashing 
through them like a traction engine. In screwing myself round 
to watch him go, I broke the creepers by which I was holding on 
and landed on my back in the sand at the foot of the tree—none 
the worse for my short drop, but considerably startled at the 
thought that the hippo might come back at any moment. I 
climbed up to my perch again without loss of time, but he was 
evidently as much frightened as I was, and returned no more. 
Shortly after this we saw two rhino come down to the river to 
drink; they were too far off for a shot, however, so I did not 
disturb them, and they gradually waddled up-stream out of 
sight. Then we heard the awe-inspiring roar of a hungry lion 
close by, and presently another hippo gave forth his tooting 
challenge a little way down the river. As there seemed no 
likelihood of getting a shot at him from our tree, I made up my 
mind to stalk him on foot, so we both descended from our perch 
and made our way slowly through the trees in the semi-darkness. 
There w*ere numbers of animals about, and I am sure that 
neither of us felt very comfortable as we crept along in the 
direction of the splashing hippo; for my own part I fancied 
every moment that I saw in front of me the form of a rhino or a 
lion ready to charge down upon us out of the shadow of the bush. 

In this manner, with nerves strung to the highest pitch, we 

reached the edge of the river in safety, only to find that we were 

0 

again balked by a small rush-covered island, on the other side 
of which our quarry could be heard. There was a good breeze 
blowing directly from him, however, so I thought the best thing 
to do was to attempt to get on to the island and to have a shot 
at him from there. Mahina, too, was eager for the fray, so we 
let ourselves quietly into the water, which here was quite shallow 
and reached only to our knees, and waded slowly across. On 
peering cautiously through the reeds at the corner of the island, 
I was surprised to find that I could see nothing of the hippo; 
but I soon realized that I was looking too far ahead, for on 

334 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


lowering my eyes there he was, not twenty-five yards away, lying 
down in the shallow water, only half covered and practically 
facing us. His closeness to us made me rather anxious for our 
safety, more especially as just then he rose to his feet and gave 
forth a peculiar challenge or call which we had already heard so 
often during the night. All the same, as he raised his head, I 
fired at it. He whirled round, made a plunge forward, staggered 
and fell, and then lay quite still. To make assurance doubly 
sure, I gave him a couple more bullets as he lay, but we found 
afterwards that they were not needed, as my first shot had been 
a very lucky one and had penetrated the brain. We left him 
where he fell and got back to our perch, glad and relieved to be 
in safety once more. 

As soon as it was daylight we were joined by my own men 
and several Wa Kamba, who had been hunting in the neighbor¬ 
hood. The natives cut out the tusks of the hippo, which were 
rather good ones, and feasted ravenously on the flesh, while I 
turned my attention with gratitude to the hot coffee and cakes 
which Mabruki had meanwhile prepared. 

2. An Infuriated Rhinoceros 

About ten days after my arrival at Machakos Road I walked 
in this way for five or six miles ahead of the last-laid rail. It 
was rather unusual for me to go so far, and, as it happened, I 
was alone on this occasion, Mahina having been left behind in 
camp. About two miles away on my left, I noticed a dark¬ 
looking object, and thinking it was an ostrich I started off 
towards it. Very soon, however, I found that it was bigger than 
an ostrich, and on getting still nearer made out the form of a 
great rhinoceros lying down. I continued to advance very 
cautiously, wriggling through the short grass until at length I 
got within fifty yards of where the huge beast was resting. 
Here I lay and watched him; but after some little time he 
evidently suspected my presence, for rising to his feet, he looked 

335 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


straight in my direction and then proceeded to walk round me in 
a half-circle. The moment he got wind of me, he whipped round 
in his tracks like a cat and came for me in a bee-line. Hoping 
to turn him, I fired instantly; but unfortunately my soft-nosed 
bullets merely annoyed him further, and had not the slightest 
effect on his thick hide. On seeing this, I flung myself down 
quite flat on the grass and threw my helmet some ten feet away 
in the hope that he would perceive it and vent his rage on it 
instead of me. On he thundered, while I scarcely dared to 
breathe. I could hear him snorting and rooting up the grass 
close to me, but luckily for me he did not catch sight of me and 
charged by a few yards to my left. 

As soon as he had passed me, my courage began to revive 
again, and I could not resist the temptation of sending a couple 
of bullets after him. These, however, simply cracked against 
his hide and splintered to pieces on it, sending the dry mud off 
in little clouds of dust. Their only real effect, indeed, was to 
make him still more angry. He stood stock-still for a moment, 
and then gored the ground most viciously and started off once 
more on the semi-circle round me. This proceeding terrified me 
more than ever, as I felt sure that he would come up-wind at me 
again, and I could scarcely hope to escape a second time. 
Unfortunately, my surmise proved correct, for directly he scented 
me, up went his nose in the air and down he charged like a 
battering-ram. I fairly pressed myself into the ground, as flat 
as ever I could, and luckily the grass was a few inches high. I 
felt the thud of his great feet pounding along, yet dared not 
move or look up lest he should see me. My heart was thumping 
like a steam hammer, and every moment I fully expected to find 
myself tossed into the air. Nearer and nearer came the heavy 
thudding, and I had quite given myself up for lost, when from 
my lying position I caught sight, out of the corner of my eye, of 
the infuriated beast rushing by. He had missed me again! I 
never felt so relieved in my life, and assuredly did not attempt 

336 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


to annoy him further. He went off for good this time, and it 
was with satisfaction that I watched him gradually disappear 
in the distance. I could not have believed it possible that these 
huge, ungainly-looking brutes could move so rapidly, and turn 
and twist in their tracks just like monkeys, had I not actually 
seen this one do so before my eyes. If he had found me he 
would certainly have pounded me to atoms, as he was an old 
bull and in a most furious and vicious mood. 

3. A Narrow Escape 

As it w r as now late in the afternoon, and as there seemed no 
possibility of inducing the lions to leave the thicket in which 
they had concealed themselves, we turned back towards camp, 
intending to come out again the next day to track the wounded 
lioness. I was now riding “Blazeaway” and was trotting along 
in advance of the tonga, when suddenly he shied badly at a 
hyena, which sprang up out of the grass almost from beneath 
his feet and quickly scampered off. I pulled up for a moment 
and sat watching the hyena’s ungainly bounds, wondering 
whether he were worth a shot. Suddenly I felt “Blazeaway” 
trembling violently beneath me, and on looking over my left 
shoulder to discover the reason, I was startled to see two fine 
lions not more than a hundred yards away, evidently the pair 
which I had seen the day before and which we had really come 
in search of. They looked as if they meant to dispute our 
passage, for they came slowly towards me for about ten yards 
or so and then lay down, watching me steadily all the time. I 
called out to Spooner, “Here are the lions I told you about,” 
and he whipped up the ponies and in a moment or two was 
beside me with the tonga. 

By this time I had seized my .303 and dismounted, so we at 
once commenced a cautious advance on the crouching lions, the 
arrangement being that Spooner was to take the right-hand one 
and I the other. We had got to within sixty yards’ range 

337 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


without incident and were just about to sit down comfortably to 
“pot” them, when they suddenly surprised us by turning and 
bolting off. I managed, however, to put a bullet into the one I 
had marked just as he crested a bank, and he looked very grand 
as he reared up against the sky and clawed the air on feeling the 
lead. For a second or t\vo he gave me the impression that he was 
about to charge; but luckily he changed his mind and followed 
his companion, who had so far escaped scot free. I immediately 
mounted “Blazeaway” and galloped off in hot pursuit, and after 
about half a mile of very stiff going got up with them once 
more. Finding now that they could not get away, they halted, 
came to bay and then charged down upon me, the wounded lion 
leading. I had left my rifle behind, so all I could do was to 
turn and fly as fast as “Blazeaway” could go, praying inwardly 
the while that he would not put his foot into a hole. When the 
lions saw that they were unable to overtake me, they gave up the 
chase and lay down again, the wounded one being about two 
hundred yards in front of the other. At once I pulled up too, 
and then went back a little way, keeping a careful eye upon 
them; and I continued these tactics of riding up and down at a 
respectful distance until Spooner came up with the rifles, when 
we renewed the attack. 

As a first measure I thought it advisable to disable the unhurt 
lion if possible, and, still using the .303, I got him with the 
second shot at a range of about three hundred yards. He seemed 
badly hit, for he sprang into the air and apparently fell heavily. 
I then exchanged my .303 for Spooner’s spare 12-bore rifle, and 
we turned our attention to the nearer lion, who all this time had 
been lying perfectly still, watching our movements closely, and 
evidently just waiting to be down upon us the moment we came 
within charging distance. He was never given this opportunity, 
however, for we did not approach nearer than ninety yards, when 
Spooner sat down comfortably and knocked him over quite dead 

338 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 


with one shot from his .577, the bullet entering the left shoulder 
obliquely and passing through the heart. 

It was now dusk, and there was no time to be lost if we meant 
to bag the second lion as well. We therefore resumed our 
cautious advance, moving to the right as we went, so as to get 
behind us what light there was remaining. The lion of course 
twisted round in the grass in such a way as always to keep 
facing us, and looked very ferocious, so that I was convinced 
that unless he were entirely disabled by the first shot he would 
be down on us like a whirlwind. All the same, I felt confident 
that, even in this event, one of us would succeed in stopping him 
before he could do any damage; but in this I was unfortunately 
to be proved mistaken. 

Eventually we managed to get within eighty yards of the 
enraged animal, I being about five yards to the left front of 
Spooner, who was followed by Bhoota at about the same distance 
to his right rear. By this time the lion was beside himself with 
fury, growling savagely and raising quite a cloud of dust by 
lashing his tail against the ground. It was clearly high time 
that we did something, so asking Spooner to fire, I dropped on 
one knee and waited. Nor was I kept long in suspense, for the 
moment Spooner’s shot rang out, up jumped the lion and charged 
down in a bee-line for me, coming in long, low bounds at great 
speed. I fired the right barrel at about fifty yards, but 
apparently missed; the left at about half that range, still 
without stopping effect. I knew then that there was no time to 
reload, so remained kneeling, expecting him to be on me the next 
moment. Suddenly, just as he was within a bound of me, he 
made a quick turn to my right. “Good heavens,” I thought, “he 
is going for Spooner.” I was wrong in this, however, for like a 
flash he passed Spooner also, and with a last tremendous bound 
seized Bhoota by the leg and rolled over and over with him for 
some yards in the impetus of the rush. Finally he stood over 

339 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


him and tried to seize him by the throat, which the brave fellow 
prevented by courageously stuffing his left arm right into the 
great jaws. Poor Bhoota! By moving at the critical moment, 
he had diverted the lion’s attention from me and had drawn the 
whole fury of the charge on to himself. 

All this, of course, happened in only a second or two. In the 
short instant that intervened, I felt a cartridge thrust into my 
hand by Spooner’s plucky servant, Imam Din, who had carried 
the 12-bore all day and who had stuck to me gallantly through¬ 
out the charge; and shoving it in, I rushed as quickly as I could 
to Bhoota’s rescue. Meanwhile, Spooner had got there before 
me and when I came up actually had his left hand on the lion’s 
flank, in a vain attempt to push him off Bhoota’s prostrate body 
and so get at the heavy rifle which the poor fellow still stoutly 
clutched. The lion, however, was so busily engaged mauling 
Bhoota’s arm that he paid not the slightest attention to Spooner’s 
efforts. Unfortunately, as he was facing straight in my direc¬ 
tion, I had to move up in full view of him, and the moment I 
reached his head, he stopped chewing the arm, though still 
holding it in his mouth, and threw himself back on his haunches, 
preparing for a spring, at the same time curling back his lips 
and exposing his long tusks in a savage snarl. I knew then 
that I had not a moment to spare, so I threw the rifle up to my 
shoulder and pulled the trigger. Imagine my utter despair and 
horror when it did not go off! “Misfire again,” I thought, and 
my heart almost stopped beating. As I took a step backwards, I 
felt it was all over now, for he would never give me time to 
extract the cartridge and load again. Still I took another step 
backwards, keeping my eyes fixed on the lion’s, which were 
blazing with rage; and in the middle of my third step, just as 
the brute was gathering himself for his spring, it suddenly 
struck me that in my haste and excitement, I had forgotten that 
I was using a borrowed rifle and had not pulled back the 
hammer (my own was hammerless). To do this and put a 

340 


ARTICLES IN GROUPS 

bullet through the lion’s brain was then the work of a moment; 
and he fell dead instantly right on the top of Bhoota. 

We did not lose a moment in rolling his great carcase off 
Bhoota’s body and quickly forced open the jaws so as to dis¬ 
engage the mangled arm, which still remained in his mouth. 
By this time the poor shikari was in a fainting condition, and 
we flew to the tonga for the brandy flask which we had so 
providently brought with us. On making a rough examination 
of the wounded man, we found that his left arm and right leg 
were both frightfully mauled, the latter being broken as well. 
He was lifted tenderly into the tonga —how thankful we now 
were to have it with us!—and Spooner at once set off with him 
to camp and the doctor. 

Before following them home I made a hasty examination of 
the dead lion and found him to be a very good specimen in 
every way. I was particularly satisfied to see that one of the 
two shots I had fired as he charged down upon me had taken 
effect. The bullet had entered below the right eye, and only just 
missed the brain. Unfortunately it was a steel one which 
Spooner had unluckily brought in his ammunition bag by 
mistake; still one would have thought that a shot of this kind, 
even with a hard bullet, would at least have checked the lion for 
the moment. As a matter of fact, however, it went clean through 
him without having the slightest stopping effect. My last 
bullet, which was of soft lead, had entered close to the right eye 
and embedded itself in the brain. By this time it had grown 
almost dark, so I left the two dead lions where they lay and rode 
for camp, which I was lucky enough to reach without further 
adventure or mishap. 


34i 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


ASSIGNMENT FOR GROUP V 

Write the contrasting themes called for in one of the following 
sets, paying especial attention to your connectives in any of the sub¬ 
jects you develop in a time sequence: 

(i) How To Set a Trap for Badger, (2) How I Caught the 
Shrewd Old Badger. 

(1) The Annual Rainfall in My Section and Its Distribution, (2) 
The Best Distribution of Rainfall for Corn, (3) The Ad¬ 
vantages and Disadvantages of Irrigation, (4) Caught in a 
Rainstorm, (5) A Quarrel about Water Rights. 

(1) Should the Franchise of the Street Car Company Be Re¬ 
newed? (2) My Summer’s Work as a Motorman, (3) 
How I Missed the Car. 

(1) Some Faults of the Modern Newspaper, (2) A Newspaper 
Man I Know, (3) How We Established a Student Paper 
in My School. 

(1) Athletics for All the Students, (2) My Favorite Game, (3) 
The Closest Game I Ever Saw Played. 

(1) Scene in Our Library, (2) Seen in Our Library, (3) How to 
Find Books Catalogued by the Dewey Decimal System. 

(1) Reflections on Getting a Letter. (2) Reflections on not Getting 
a Letter, (3) Qualities of a Good Friendship Letter, (4) A 
Lively Correspondence in Literature (History, the Polit¬ 
ical World). 

ASSIGNMENT FOR THE SECTION AS A WHOLE 

1. Make out an exhaustive list of possible topics on a subject that 
interests you. Arrange them according to kinds of composition, 
mood, purpose, point of view, etc. Underline the ones that would 
appeal to you as topics for themes by yourself. 

2. From time to time, as circumstances and inclination permit, 
write themes on the topics you have underscored. 


342 


TRANSITIONS, SUMMARIES, AND GOOD 
LITERARY CARPENTRY 


It is imperative that our material in writing be neatly fitted 
part into part, that the important ideas be so emphasized and 
reiterated that readers cannot miss them, and that in general our 
workmanship be such as to prevent any avoidable distracting 
of the reader’s attention. Hence the need for transitions, 
summaries, and deft carpentry. 

TRANSITIONS 

A transition should be, first of all, clear. No writer is skilful 
who leaves his readers in the slightest doubt as to the exact point 
at which he abandons one phase of his subject for another. It 
is better to make a bald announcement of the change than to 
let readers gradually perceive that it has been made without 
warning signal. An example of somewhat crude but perfectly 
clear transition is Motley’s turning from Charles to Philip in 
a new paragraph (page 209): “So much for the father. The 
son . . 

If in addition to being clear the transition can be graceful, 
so much the better. Study the transitions in the first four para¬ 
graphs of “In the Matter of a Private” (pages 123-25). The 
substance of the respective paragraphs is as follows: (1) 
Schoolgirls may become hysterical; (2) So may Thomas Atkins 
and his cronies; (3) The much-abused Thomas is but human; 
(4) Here is a story that proves it. But how does Kipling lead 
our minds across from one of these units to the next ? He bridges 


343 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(1) and (2) by stating that a mother superior and an army 
colonel would be shocked at a comparison between schoolgirl 
and soldier, but that the likeness exists. He links (2) with (3) 
by ending the former and beginning the latter with a reference 
to “the brute’s ammunition.” When he comes to (4), he wishes 
the transition to be, not smooth, but jolting. He therefore 
says abruptly: “That is the prologue. This is the story.” 

Perhaps the most skilful as well as the tersest of transitions, 
at least in exposition, is that which in a single sentence sum¬ 
marizes the thought of what has preceded and gives the clue 
to the thought to come. Thus in the selection from Miss 
Edwards on pages 234-35 the first paragraph concerns itself 
with the vicious disposition of the camel, and the second with 
his extraordinary joints; the third is to be devoted to his paces. 
The transitional sentence to this third paragraph is admirably 
concise and summarizing: “His paces, however, are more com¬ 
plicated than his joints and more trying than his temper.” 
Through a short, sharp comparison we are apprised of the next 
topic for discussion and at the same time reminded of the topics 
already disposed of. 

SUMMARIES 

Human minds are inattentive. The young writer usually 
fails to reckon sufficiently with this fact. He assumes that his 
readers follow the thread of his thought as painstakingly as 
he himself does. He would be wiser if he heeded the ad¬ 
monition: “Tell ’em what you’re going to say, tell ’em what 
you ’re saying, tell ’em what you’ve said.” In other words, 
he should resort to summaries. 

A prophetic summary (it should not be too detailed) may open 
a theme. A reminiscent one may bring a theme to its close. 

344 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


Sometimes a long theme contains several sections, which them¬ 
selves are somewhat complex. Summaries of these several units 
of the thought may come at the ends of the sections, and a 
general summary may introduce the theme, close it, or do both. 
A skilful exemplification of this method may be found in the 
selection from Gollomb on pages 380-94. 

Summaries are of two kinds, the mechanical and the artistic. 
The mechanical summary is blunt and bald; it lays down its 
facts in undisguised one, two, three order. The artistic sum¬ 
mary, as exemplified for instance in the last paragraph of the 
selection from Burke on page 367, may also for the sake of 
clearness employ numerals; but with them it interweaves other 
matter, or it invests them with a form of statement, that makes 
them appear less severely mathematical. Sometimes, as at the 
end of the selection from Motley (page 210), art permits a 
summary to be partial, modified. Sometimes, as in the conclud¬ 
ing sentences of the selection from Taylor (page 270), the 
summary may be emotional. Sometimes, as at the close of the 
selection from Hawthorne (page 268), it may be compressed 
into an epigrammatic sentence. Sometimes, as in the final para¬ 
graph of the selection from Thackeray (page 199), it may 
radiate such beauty that only conscious thought on our part 
will teach us that it is a summary at all. 

GENERAL CARPENTRY 

The mark of good literary carpentry is orderliness. This 
orderliness may reveal itself in the treatment of incidents ac¬ 
cording to their succession in time, or of objects according to 
their contiguity in space, or of more abstract matters according 
to logical relationships. 

The account of Tom Brown’s meeting with East (pages 189- 

345 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


91) illustrates orderly sequence of time. That of the visit to the 
Kickapoo village (pages 274-77) illustrates orderly progress in 
both time and space. But the ordering of intellectual matter 
is more baffling, and must have fuller illustration in a separate 
paragraph. 

The account of Dobbin’s visit to John Sedley (pages 79-80) 
generalizes in the first paragraph, and makes those general ideas 
specific in the second. The description of the view from Teu- 
felsdrockh’s tower (pages 85-87) gives one paragraph to the 
view by day and one to the view by night. The characterization 
of Wouter Van Twiller (pages 195-96) deals first with the per-' 
son and later with the temperament of the statesman. “In the 
Matter of a Private” (see the analysis on pages 343-44) shows 
excellent carpentry through its logical divisions of the thought 
and its skilfully knit transitions. The opening of “The Three 
Musketeers” (pages 140-41) is a dexterous blending of exposi¬ 
tion and suspense. The exposition of “The Two Methods of 
Hunting Buffalo” (pages 325-27) divid:s itself among the four 
paragraphs thus: (1) Naming of the two methods and explana¬ 
tion of the first (“running”); (2) Discussion of the chief diffi¬ 
cultyinrunning; (3) Discussion of the chief danger in running; 
(4) Explanation of the second method (“approaching”), con¬ 
trast of it with the first, and designation of the chief exponents 
of the two. Now the methods of these illustrations vary, but 
every piece considered makes use of a definite and orderly plan. 

The orderliness which belongs to good carpentry must mani¬ 
fest itself in yet another way. A writer must make intelligent 
and ever-vigilant use of connectives. Just as he pins the larger 
units of his composition together with careful transitions (see 
pages 343-44), so must he through connecting words and phrases 
show between sentences and unthin sentences the exact relation- 

346 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 

ships. To do this requires alertness and close thinking—pre¬ 
cisely the qualities that most writers lack. It has been stated 
(pages 3-4) that every paragraph one writes is a photograph 
of his mind. The statement is true, not only with reference 
to the rounding out of the thought contained within the para¬ 
graph, but also with reference to the proper binding together 
of the thought. Many a speaker, yea many a writer, has “and,” 
“but,” and “then” as his only binding material. He is an in¬ 
tellectual child who can do nothing but add the block of one 
concept to another, or set one block over against another, or 
string temporal ideas together into a necklace of uniform 
“thens.” Correlation, subordination, cause and effect, and other 
relationships in thought are without a place in his mental proc¬ 
esses. Were it otherwise, he would use the words to ex¬ 
press them. His linguistic deficiencies show, as in a photograph, 
the gaps and impoverishment of his mind. Let us analyze these 
linguistic shortcomings. What kind of words does he lack? 
Not nouns and verbs, for among the parts of speech these de¬ 
mand a sense of fact—and that sense he has. Not adjectives 
and adverbs, for these rest mainly upon the imagination—and 
the absence of that faculty has little bearing on the matter we 
are discussing. But conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, and other 
connecting words, for they call for close reasoning power—and 
close reasoning is the thing he never displays. His inability 
to correlate and subordinate his ideas correctly is a barometer 
of his mental development. The fault may be inborn and hope¬ 
less; but if it is sup.erable, a thorough study of connectives will 
mitigate it. And this delicate and discriminating use of con¬ 
nectives, perhaps the very crux of one’s improvement in writing, 
may be found in several of the selections here presented for 
study. 


347 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


WHAT I PURPOSE IN MY HISTORY OF ENGLAND * 

Lord Macaulay 

This selection has a summarizing forecast, a definite close, a 
paragraph devoted to each of the four stages of the thought, and 
absolutely clear transitions. Macaulay, instead of wielding a subtle 
art, works in the open; we can see his structure, see him glue it 
together. 

I purpose to write the history of England from the accession 
of King James the Second down to a time which is within the 
memory of men still living. I shall recount the errors which, 
in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from 
the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution 
which terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and 
their parliaments, and bound up together the rights of the people 
and the title of the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the 
new settlement was, during many troubled years, successfully 
defended against foreign and domestic enemies; how, under that 
settlement, the authority of law and the security of property 
were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and of 
individual action never before known; how, from the auspicious 
union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which the 
annals of human affairs had furnished no example; how our 
country from a state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to 
the place of umpire among European powers; how her opulence 
and her martial glory grew together; how, by wise and resolute 
good faith, was gradually established a public credit fruitful of 
marvels which to the statesmen of any former age would have 
seemed incredible; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a 
maritime power, compared with which every other maritime 
power, ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance; how Scot¬ 
land, after ages of enmity, was at length united to England, 
not merely by legal bonds, but by indissoluble ties of interest 
and affection; how, in America, the British colonies rapidly 

* History of England, Chapter I. 

348 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


became far mightier and wealthier than the realms which 
Cortes and Pizarro had added to the dominions of Charles the 
Fifth; how, in Asia, British adventurers founded an empire not 
less splendid and more durable than that of Alexander. 

Nor will it be less my duty faithfully to record disasters 
mingled with triumphs, and great national crimes and follies 
far more humiliating than any disaster. It will be seen that 
even what we justly account our chief blessings were not with¬ 
out alloy. It will be seen that the system which effectually se¬ 
cured our liberties against the encroachments of kingly power 
gave birth to a new class of abuses from which absolute mon¬ 
archies are exempt. It will be seen that, in consequence partly 
of unwise interference, and partly of unwise neglect, the in¬ 
crease of wealth and the extension of trade produced, together 
with immense good, some evils from which poor and rude 
societies are free. It will be seen how, in two important de¬ 
pendencies of the crown, wrong was followed by just retribution; 
how imprudence and obstinacy broke the ties which bound the 
North American colonies to the parent state; how Ireland, cursed 
by the domination of race over race, and of religion over religion, 
remained indeed a member of the empire but a withered and 
distorted member, adding no strength to the body politic, and 
reproachfully pointed at by all who feared or envied the great¬ 
ness of England. 

Yet, unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect of this 
chequered narrative will be to excite thankfulness in all re¬ 
ligious minds, and hope in the breasts of all patriots. For 
the history of our country during the last hundred and sixty 
years is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of in¬ 
tellectual improvement. Those who compare the age on which 
their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in their 
imagination may talk of degeneracy and decay: but no man 
who is correctly informed as to the past will be disposed to take 
a morose or desponding view of the present. 

349 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


I should very imperfectly execute the task which I have under¬ 
taken if I were merely to treat of battles and sieges, of the rise 
and fall of administrations, of intrigues in the palace, and of 
debates in the parliament. It will be my endeavour to relate the 
history of the people as well as the history of the government, 
to trace the progress of useful and ornamental arts, to describe 
the rise of religious sects and the changes of literary taste, to 
portray the manners of successive generations and not to pass 
by with neglect even the revolutions which have taken place 
in dress, furniture, repasts, and public amusements. I shall 
cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the 
dignity of history, if I can succeed in placing before the English 
of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their 
ancestors. 


ASSIGNMENT 

1. Summarize the thought of each paragraph in a sentence. 

2. Study the transitions and connectives. Try to improve upon 
them. 

3. Study the relationship of ideas and the use of connectives in 
the fourth sentence of the second paragraph. Rewrite the sentence, 
making two or three sentences of it if necessary, to bring out the 
same relationships of thought in language of your own. 

4. Write a theme on one of these topics: 

The Advantages and Disadvantages of College Fraternities (Inter¬ 
collegiate Athletics, Literary Society Work). (Give a con¬ 
clusion as to which outweighs) 

The arguments for and against a proposed course of action in 
college (with conclusion) 

What has been accomplished and what has not been accomplished 
by some school organization or activity 

What I Got and What I Failed to Get out of My Training in 
High School (My Association with My Fellows) 

Merits and Shortcomings of My English (Science, History) 
Course in This (Some Other) Institution. 

350 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


THE POPULATION OF ENGLAND IN 1685 * 

Lord Macaulay 

One of the first objects of an inquirer, who wishes to form a 
correct notion of the state of a community at a given time, must 
be to ascertain of how many persons that community then con¬ 
sisted. Unfortunately the population of England in 1685 cannot 
be ascertained with perfect accuracy. For no great state had 
then adopted the wise course of periodically numbering the 
people. All men were left to conjecture for themselves; and, as 
they generally conjectured without examining facts, and under 
the influence of strong passions and prejudices, their guesses 
were often ludicrously absurd. Even intelligent Londoners 
ordinarily talked of London as containing several millions of 
souls. It was confidently asserted by many that, during the 
thirty-five years which had elapsed between the accession of 
Charles the First and the Restoration, the population of the 
City had increased by two millions. Even while the ravages of 
the plague and fire were recent, it was the fashion to say that the 
capital still had a million and a half of inhabitants. Some 
persons, disgusted by these exaggerations, ran violently into the 
opposite extreme. Thus Isaac Vossius, a man of undoubted 
parts and learning, strenuously maintained that there were only 
two millions of human beings in England, Scotland, and Ireland 
taken together. 

We are not, however, left without the means of correcting the 
wild blunders into which some minds were hurried by national 
vanity and others by a morbid love of paradox. There are 
extant three computations which seem to be entitled to peculiar 
attention. They are entirely independent of each other: they 
proceed on different principles; and yet there is little difference 
in the results. 

* History of England, Chapter III. 


351 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


One of these computations was made in the year 1696 by 
Gregory King, Lancaster herald, a political arithmetician of 
great acuteness and judgment. The basis of his calculations was 
the number of houses returned in 1690 by the officers who made 
the last collection of the hearth money. The conclusion at which 
he arrived was that the population of England was nearly five 
millions and a half. 

About the same time King William the Third was desirous to 
ascertain the comparative strength of the religious sects into 
which the community was divided. An inquiry was instituted; 
and reports were laid before him from all the dioceses of the 
realm. According to these reports the number of his English 
subjects must have been about five million two hundred thousand. 

Lastly, in our own days, Mr. Finlaison, an actuary of eminent 
skill, subjected the ancient parochial registers of baptisms, mar¬ 
riages, and burials, to all the tests which the modern improve¬ 
ments in statistical science enabled him to apply. His opinion 
was, that, at the close of the seventeenth century, the population 
of England was a little under five million two hundred thousand 
souls. 

Of these three estimates, framed without concert by different 
persons from different sets of materials, the highest, which is 
that of King, does not exceed the lowest, which is that of 
Finlaison, by one twelfth. We may, therefore, with confidence 
pronounce that, when James the Second reigned, England con¬ 
tained between five million and five million five hundred 
thousand inhabitants. On the very highest supposition she 
then had less than one third of her present population, and less 
than three times the population which is now collected in her 
gigantic capital. 


ASSIGNMENT 

i. Note the orderly progression of the thought in this selection, 
and the sharp division of the material into paragraphs. 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


2. Adapt Macaulay’s method to a theme of three to five para¬ 
graphs on one of these topics: 

The Different Schools I Have Attended (Grades I Have Passed 
Through) 

The Different Communities I Have Lived In 

Social Classes in School (College) 

The Successive Economic Stages Through Which an American 
State Has Passed 

The Different Sections of Our Country and Their Characteristics 

The Different Kinds of Residences (frame, stone, brick, adobe, 
etc.) 

How the Vote May Be Taken in a Public Meeting (various 
methods) 

The Various Types of Flour Mills. 

THE OPERATION OF TATTOOING* 

Herman Melville 

In one of my strolls with Kory-Kory, in passing along the 
border of a thick growth of bushes, my attention was arrested 
by a singular noise. On entering the thicket, I witnessed for 
the first time the operation of tattooing as performed by these 
islanders. 

I beheld a man extended flat upon his back on the ground, 
and, despite the forced composure of his countenance, it was 
evident that he was suffering agony. His tormentor bent over 
him, working away for all the world like a stone-cutter with 
mallet and chisel. In one hand he held a short slender stick, 
pointed with a shark’s tooth, on the upright end of which he 
tapped with a small hammer-like piece of wood, thus punctur¬ 
ing the skin, and charging it with the coloring matter in which 
the instrument was dipped. A cocoa-nut shell containing this 
fluid was placed upon the ground. It is prepared by mixing 
with a vegetable juice the ashes of the “armor,” or candle-nut, 
always preserved for the purpose. Beside the savage, and spread 


* Typee, Chapter XXIX. 


353 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


out upon a piece of soiled tappa, were a great number of curious 
black-looking little implements of bone and wood, used in the 
various divisions of his art. A few terminated in a single fine 
point, and, like very delicate pencils, were employed in giving the 
finishing touches, or in operating upon the more sensitive por¬ 
tions of the body, as was the case in the present instance. Others 
presented several points distributed in a line, somewhat re¬ 
sembling the teeth of a saw. These were employed in the coarser 
parts of the work, and particularly in pricking in straight marks. 
Some presented their points disposed in small figures, and being 
placed upon the body, were, by a single blow of the hammer, 
made to leave their indelible impression. I observed a few, the 
handles of which were mysteriously curved, as if intended to 
be introduced into the orifice of the ear, with a view perhaps of 
beating the tattoo upon the tympanum. Altogether, the sight 
of these strange instruments recalled to mind that display of 
cruel-looking mother-of-pearl-handled things which one sees in 
their velvet-lined cases at the elbow of a dentist. 

The artist was not at this time engaged on an original sketch, 
his subject being a venerable savage, whose tattooing had become 
somewhat faded with age and needed a few repairs, and ac¬ 
cordingly he was merely employed in touching up the works 
of some of the old masters of the Typee school, as delineat¬ 
ed upon the human canvas before him. The parts operated 
upon were the eyelids, where a longitudinal streak, like the 
one which adorned Kory-Kory, crossed the countenance of the 
victim. 

In spite of all the efforts of the poor old man, sundry twitch- 
ings and screwings of the muscles of the face denoted the ex¬ 
quisite sensibility of these shutters to the windows of his soul, 
which he was now having repainted. But the artist, with a 
heart as callous as that of an army surgeon, continued his per¬ 
formance, enlivening his labors with a wild chant, tapping away 
the while as merrily as a woodpecker. 

354 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


ASSIGNMENT 

1. This selection illustrates the explanation of a process, though it 
embeds the explanation in narrative. Show the sequence of thought 
in the successive paragraphs. 

2. Write a theme on one of these topics: 

Dressing a Window 

Running a Furnace 

The Care of an Automobile 

Tending a Flower Garden 

Dehorning Cattle 

Marcelling the Hair 

Cleaning House 

Developing a Negative 

How to Make Pottery- 

How to Control the Fly (Mosquito) 

How to Prepare for the Exam in - 

How I Write My Freshman Themes. 

HOW CRUSOE MADE EARTHEN VESSELS 

Daniel Defoe 

This selection is a concrete account of homely achievement and 
of the blunders, failures, and accidents that preceded it. It closes 
on a delightfully human note: Crusoe felt such joy in his completed 
vessels that he must forthwith use them to cook in. 

I had long studied, by some means or other, to make myself 
some earthen vessels, which indeed I wanted sorely, but knew 
not where to come at them. However, considering the heat of 
the climate, I did not doubt but if I could find out any such 
clay, I might botch up some such pot as might, being dried in 
the sun, be hard enough and strong enough to bear handling, 
and to hold anything that was dry, and required to be kept so; 
and as this was necessary in the preparing corn, meal, &c., which 
was the thing I was upon, I resolved to make some as large 
as I could, and fit only to stand like jars, to hold what should 
be put into them. 


355 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


It would make the reader pity me, or rather laugh at me, to 
tell how many awkward ways I took to raise this paste; what 
odd misshapen, ugly things I made; how many of them fell in, 
and how many fell out, the clay not being stiff enough to bear 
its own weight; how many cracked by the over-violent heat of 
the sun, being set out too hastily; and how many fell in pieces 
with only removing, as well before as after they were dried; and, 
in a word, how, after having labored hard to find the clay, to 
dig it, to temper it, to bring it home, and work it, I could not 
make above two large earthen ugly things (I cannot call them 
jars) in about two months’ labor. 

However, as the sun baked these two very dry and hard, 
I lifted them very gently up, and set them down again in two 
great wicker baskets, which I had made on purpose for them, 
that they might not break; and as between the pot and the basket 
there was a little room to spare, I stuffed it full of the rice 
and barley straw, and these two pots being to stand always dry, 
I thought would hold my dry corn, and perhaps the meal, when 
the corn was bruised. 

Though I miscarried so much in my design for large pots, 
yet I made several smaller things with better success; such as 
little round pots, flat dishes, pitchers, and pipkins, and any 
things my hand turned to; and the heat of the sun baked them 
strangely hard. 

But all this would not answer my end, which was to get an 
earthen pot to hold what was liquid, and bear the fire, which 
none of these could do. It happened after some time, making 
a pretty large fire for cooking my meat, when I went to put it 
out after I had done with it, I found a broken piece of one of 
my earthenware vessels in the fire, burnt as hard as a stone, and 
red as a tile. I was agreeably surprised to see it, and said 
to mvself, that certainlv thev might be made to burn whole, 
if they would burn broken. 


356 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


This set me to studying how to order my fire, so as to make 
it burn me some pots. I had no notion of a kiln, such as the 
potters burn in, or of glazing them with lead, though I had 
some lead to do it with; but I placed three large pipkins, and 
two or three pots in a pile, one upon another, and placed my 
firewood all round it, with a great heap of embers under them. 
I plied the fire with fresh fuel round the outside, and upon the 
top, till I saw the pots in the inside red-hot quite through, and 
observed that they did not crack at all. When I saw them clear 
red, I let them stand in that heat about five or six hours, till I 
found one of them, though it did not crack, did melt or run, for 
the sand which was mixed with the clay melted by the violence 
of the heat, and would have run into glass, if I had gone on; 
so I slacked my fire gradually till the pots began to abate of 
the red color; and watching them all night, that I might not let 
the fire abate too fast, in the morning I had three very good, 
I will not say handsome, pipkins, and two other earthen pots, 
as hard burnt as could be desired, and one of them perfectly 
glazed with the running of the sand. 

After this experiment, I need not say that I wanted no sort 
of earthenware for my use; but I must needs say, as to the 
shapes of them, they were very indifferent, as any one may sup¬ 
pose, when I had no way of making them but as the children 
make dirt pies, or as a woman would make pies that never 
learned to raise paste. 

No joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine, 
when I found I had an earthen pot that would bear fire; and I 
had hardly patience to stay till they were cold, before I set one 
upon the fire again, with some water in it, to boil me some meat, 
which it did admirably well; and with a piece of a kid I made 
some very good broth, though I wanted oatmeal and several other 
ingredients requisite to make it so good as I would have had 
it be. 


357 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Trace the sequence of thought through the successive para¬ 
graphs. 

2. Analyze the transitions. 

3. Write a theme on one of these topics: 

A Makeshift 

A Homemade Contrivance 

A Rude Invention That I Profited By 

How I Did It Without Tools 

How I Made Something to Answer the Need 

How an Inexperienced Boy Performed a Man’s Task 

Ann’s Improvised Lunch for Company 

How Jane Met the Emergency 

A Homely Way around a Difficulty 

How I Made a Willow Whistle. 

THE RENAISSANCE OF THE PUPPET PLAY* 

Anne Stoddard 

This selection begins strikingly, and with skilful transitions and 
orderly progress explains the nature of the latest revival of the 
old puppet show. The omitted section traces the past history of 
the art. The final paragraph, in function really a summary, brings 
us so dexterously back to the initial thought that all sense of its 
formal purpose is lost in sheer pleasure. 

“It is not yet impossible,” says Elnora Whitman Curtis, la¬ 
menting the decay of the puppet-stage, “that a gifted artist will 
yet bring it to new honors.” 

That pleasant prophecy has been recently fulfilled in New 
York through the genius of Tony Sarg and the generous co¬ 
operation of Mr. Winthrop Ames. The marionettes of Tony 
Sarg, which have made their debut in three fairy-plays, are more 
elaborate in mechanism than the famous Munich puppets, some 
of the little figures being manipulated by as many as twenty-four 
strings, and requiring great dexterity as well as dramatic feeling 

* Century Magazine, June 1918. Reprinted by permission of the Century Co 

358 



TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


on the part of the operator, or “puppeteer.” They average three 
feet in height and are furnished with virtually all the joints of 
the human frame. The cast of the three plays comprises thirty- 
six puppets. 

Not only are these manikins astonishingly ingenious, but their 
character and antics and the daring color-effects carried out in 
their costumes and backgrounds betray that quality of style 
which has made their creator’s work in illustration and poster 
design noteworthy. 

Let us pretend that we are attending the first-night perform¬ 
ance at the playhouse where the little people made their first 
bow to the world. First on the bill is “The Three Wishes,” 
a version of the familiar fairy-tale written for marionettes by 
Count Franz Pocci and adapted for Mr. Sarg’s puppets by Mr. 
Ames. 

The tiny stage is set in a shadow-box; the curtain rises on 
a sunny knoll with a glimpse of red roofs in the valley below; 
bright butterflies flutter above the grass; a saucy molly cotton¬ 
tail bobs across the hillside. The personages of the play are 
four: a blue-smocked wood-chopper, his wife in mob-cap and 
panniers, the neighborhood gossip,—a rosy little man with a 
round paunch,—and a fairy, such as children dream of. A 
frisking woolly dog is perhaps the most engaging actor in the 
cast. 

This little play is remarkable for the charm and ingenuity 
of the puppets and the beauty of the settings. It is the most 
interesting of the three pieces presented, from the point of 
view of the critic of legitimate drama; but the playlets which 
follow are more successful as vehicles for displaying the accom¬ 
plishments of the marionettes. 

“The Green Suit” and “A Stolen Beauty and the Great 
Jewel” were written at Mr. Sarg’s suggestion by Mrs. Hamilton 
Williamson. In these sketches appear many fascinating char¬ 
acters: a boy who, like “Alice in Wonderland,” grows to strange 

359 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


stature before one’s wondering eyes; a skeleton who performs a 
danse macabre and tosses his head in the air; a monkey-man 
who grinds his little organ; a donkey who kicks and bucks, and 
his rider who hops nimbly off and on his back; a trick ele¬ 
phant who kneels to permit his master to mount, and later 
lifts him in his trunk to the window of his lady-love; a juggler; 
an Eastern potentate who smokes a narghile,—real smoke!—a 
veiled beauty who uncovers her face for her lover; a snake- 
charmer and a sinuous serpent who ripples across the stage with 
evil intent and comes to death on the block; a ghost that rises 
from a mysterious pot; and many others, all marvelously ex¬ 
pressive and supple in movement. 

One member of the cast of “A Stolen Beauty and the Great 
Jewel” deserves special mention, since hers is perhaps the most 
remarkable achievement of the marionettes. This doll is an 
Oriental dancer. Her contortions and posturings are in per¬ 
fect imitation of the living nautch-girl, and it is safe to say that 
nothing ever seen on the puppet-stage, in America at least, can 
surpass the ease and grace with which her little body sways 
backward in an inverted crescent, the ethereal lightness of her 
circling about the stage, and the abandon of her attitudes of 
the dance. 

Although there is a strong savor of the comic and grotesque 
about these productions, they are primarily things of beauty 
and skill. Very modern in coloring are the settings, and against 
these brilliant backgrounds move the manikins, charming in 
color and attitude. An atmosphere of faery hangs about them, 
an illusion of unreality, the sense of a lovely, yet comic, world 
that is a refreshment and a delight. Humor, skill, ingenuity, 
trained sense of color and composition, and instinctive under¬ 
standing of the child heart have gone into their making. 

• ••••••• 

Is it not interesting that this decade, which has brought upon 
us all the woe in the world, should have witnessed a revival 

360 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


which springs from the child heart of the race, and must in¬ 
evitably appeal to those who are fortunate enough to have kept 
their simplicities? “The world is too much with us”; surely 
it is good to lose it for an hour in contemplation of this gentle 
art. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Trace the progress of thought from paragraph to paragraph, 
and analyze the transitions and connectives. 

2. Write a theme on one of the following: 

The Revival of an Oldtime Custom 

Grandmother at the Spinning Wheel 

The Pageant on the Early Plistory of My Section 

Some Present-Day Aspects of Folk-Dancing 

An Oldtime Fashion in Dress Revived 

Why It Is a Pity that the Old Handicrafts Have Decayed 

The Household That Was Its Own Factory. 

CAUSES FOR THE AMERICAN SPIRIT OF LIBERTY * 

Edmund Burke 

In building upon a stark mechanical basis an artistic treatment of 
material this selection is unsurpassed. Clues to an appreciation of 
its art will be found in the assignments. 

In this character of the Americans, a love of freedom is the 
predominating feature which marks and distinguishes the whole; 
and as an ardent is always a jealous affection, your Colonies 
become suspicious, restive, and untractable whenever they see 
the least attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle from 
them by chicane, what they think the only advantage worth 
living for. This fierce spirit of liberty is stronger in the 
English Colonies probably than in any other people of the earth, 
and this from a great variety of powerful causes; which, to 
understand the true temper of their minds and the direction 

* From the “Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies.” 

361 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


which this spirit takes, it will not be amiss to lay open some¬ 
what more largely. 

First, the people of the Colonies are descendants of English¬ 
men. England, Sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, 
and formerly adored, her freedom. The Colonists emigrated 
from you when this part of your character was most predomi¬ 
nant; and they took this bias and direction the mom nt they 
parted from your hands. They are therefore not only devoted 
to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas, and on 
English principles. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstrac¬ 
tions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible ob¬ 
ject; and ever } 7 nation has formed to itself some favorite point, 
which by way of eminence becomes the criterion of their hap¬ 
piness. It happened, you know, Sir, that the great contests 
for freedom in this country were from the earliest times chiefly 
upon the question of taxing. Most of the contests in the ancient 
commonwealths turned primarily on the right of election of 
magistrates; or on the balance among the several orders of the 
state. The question of money was not with them so immediate. 
But in England it was otherwise. On this point of taxes the 
ablest pens, and most eloquent tongues, have been exercised; 
the greatest spirits have acted and suffered. In order to give 
the fullest satisfaction concerning the importance of this point, 
it was not only necessary for those who in argument defended 
the excellence of the English Constitution to insist on this privi¬ 
lege of granting money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that 
the right had been acknowledged in ancient parchments and 
blind usages to reside in a certain body called a House of Com¬ 
mons. They went much farther; they attempted to prove, and 
they succeeded, that in theory it ought to be so, from the par¬ 
ticular nature of a House of Commons as an immediate repre¬ 
sentative of the people, whether the old records had delivered 
this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to inculcate, as a 
fundamental principle, that in all monarchies the people must 

362 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


in effect themselves, mediately or immediately, possess the 
power of granting their own money, or no shadow of liberty 
can subsist. The Colonies draw from you, as with their life¬ 
blood, these ideas and principles. Their love of liberty, as 
with you, fixed and attached on this specific point of taxing. 
Liberty might be safe, or might be endangered, in twenty other 
particulars, without their being much pleased or alarmed. Here 
they felt its pulse; and as they found that beat, they thought 
themselves sick or sound. I do not say whether they were right 
or wrong in applying your general arguments to their own case. 
It is not easy, indeed, to make a monopoly of theorems and 
corollaries. The fact is, that they did thus apply those general 
arguments; and your mode of governing them, whether through 
lenity or indolence, through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them 
in the imagination that they, as well as you, had an interest 
in these common principles. 

They were further confirmed in this pleasing error by the 
form of their provincial legislative assemblies. Their govern¬ 
ments are popular in an high degree; some are merely popular; 
in all, the popular representative is the most weighty; and this 
share of the people in their ordinary government never fails 
to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and with a strong aversion 
from whatever tends to deprive them of their chief importance. 

If anything were wanting to this necessary operation of the 
form of government, religion would have given it a complete 
effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, in this new 
people is no way worn out or impaired; and their mode of pro¬ 
fessing it is also one main cause of this free spirit. The people 
are Protestants; and of that kind which is the most adverse to 
all implicit submission of mind and opinion. This is a per¬ 
suasion not only favorable to liberty, but built upon it. I do 
not think, Sir, that the reason of this averseness in the dissent¬ 
ing churches from all that looks like absolute government is 
so much to be sought in their religious tenets, as in their history. 

363 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Every one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is at least 
co-eval with most of the governments where it prevails; that 
it has generally gone hand in hand with them, and received 
great favor and every kind of support from authority. The 
Church of England too was formed from her cradle under the 
nursing care of regular government. But the dissenting in¬ 
terests have sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordinary 
powers of the world, and could justify that opposition only on 
a strong claim to natural liberty. Their very existence depended 
on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. All 
Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dis¬ 
sent. But the religion most prevalent in our Northern Colonies 
is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissi- 
dence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. 
This religion, under a variety of denominations agreeing in 
nothing but in the communion of the spirit of liberty, is predomi¬ 
nant in most of the Northern Provinces, where the Church of 
England, notwithstanding its legal rights, is in reality no more 
than a sort of private sect, not composing most probably the 
tenth of the people. The Colonists left England when this spirit 
was high, and in the emigrants was the highest of all; and even 
that stream of foreigners which has been constantly flowing into 
these Colonies has, for the greatest part, been composed of dis¬ 
senters from the establishments of their several countries, who 
have brought with them a temper and character far from alien 
to that of the people with whom they mixed. 

Sir, I can perceive by their manner that some gentlemen 
object to the latitude of this description, because in the Southern 
Colonies the Church of England forms a large body, and has a 
regular establishment. It is certainly true. There is, however, 
a circumstance attending these Colonies which, in my opinion, 
fully counterbalances this difference, and makes the spirit of 
liberty still more high and haughty than in those to the 
northward. It is that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have 

364 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


a vast multitude of slaves. Wher° this is the case in any part 
of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and 
jealous of their freedom. Freedom is to them, not only an en¬ 
joyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. Not seeing there, 
that freedom, as in countries where it is a common blessing and 
as broad and general as the air, may be united with much 
abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior of servitude; 
liberty looks, amongst them, like something that is more noble 
and liberal. I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior 
morality of this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as 
virtue in it; but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is 
so; and these people of the Southern Colonies are much more 
strongly, and with an higher and more stubborn spirit, attached 
to liberty than those to the northward. Such were all the ancient 
commonwealths; such were our Gothic ancestors; such in our 
days were the Poles; and such will be all masters of slaves, who 
are not slaves themselves. In such a people the haughtiness of 
domination combines with the spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and 
renders it invincible. 

Permit me, Sir, to add another circumstance in our Colonies 
which contributes no mean part towards the growth and effect 
of this untractable spirit. I mean their education. In no 
country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study. 
The profession itself is numerous and powerful; and in most 
provinces it takes the lead. The greater number of the deputies 
sent to the Congress were lawyers. But all who read, and most 
do read, endeavor to obtain some smattering in that science. I 
have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of 
his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were so many 
books as those on the law exported to the Plantations. The 
Colonists have now fallen into the way of printing them for 
their own use. I hear that they have sold nearly as many of 
Blackstone’s Commentaries in America as in England. General 
Gage marks out this disposition very particularly in a letter on 

365 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


your table. He states that all the people in his government are 
lawyers, or smatterers in law; and that in Boston they have been 
enabled, by successful chicane, wholly to evade many parts of 
one of your capital penal constitutions. The smartness of de¬ 
bate will say that this knowledge ought to teach them more 
clearly the rights of legislature, their obligations to obedience, 
and the penalties of rebellion. All this is mighty well. But 
my honorable and learned friend on the floor, who condescends 
to mark what I say for animadversion, will disdain that ground. 
He has heard, as well as I, that when great honors and great 
emoluments do not win over this knowledge to the service of the 
state, it is a formidable adversary to government. If the spirit 
be not tamed and broken by these happy methods, it is stubborn 
and litigious. Abeunt studia in mores. This study renders 
men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in 
defence, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more 
simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle 
in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate 
the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the bad¬ 
ness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance, 
and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze. 

The last cause of this disobedient spirit in the Colonies is 
hardly less powerful than the rest, as it is not merely moral, 
but laid deep in the natural constitution of things. Three 
thousand miles of ocean lie between you and them. No con¬ 
trivance can prevent the effect of this distance in weakening 
government. Seas roll, and months pass, between the order and 
the execution; and the want of a speedy explanation of a single 
point is enough to defeat a whole system. You have, indeed, 
winged ministers of vengeance, who carry your bolts in their 
pounces to the remotest verge of the sea. But there a power 
steps in that limits the arrogance of raging passions and furious 
elements, and says, So jar shalt thou go, and no farther. Who 
are you, that you should fret and rage, and bite the chains of 

366 . 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


nature? Nothing worse happens to you than does to all nations 
who have extensive empire; and it happens in all the forms 
into which empire can be thrown. In large bodies the circula¬ 
tion of power must be less vigorous at the extremities. Nature 
has said it. The Turk cannot govern Egypt and Arabia and 
Kurdistan as he governs Thrace; nor has he the same dominion 
in Crimea and Algiers which he has at Brusa and Smyrna. 
Despotism itself is obliged to truck and huckster. The Sultan 
gets such obedience as he can. He governs with a loose rein, 
that he may govern at all; and the whole of the force and vigor 
of fris authority in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxa¬ 
tion in all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is, perhaps, not 
so well obeyed as you are in yours. She complies, too; she sub¬ 
mits; she watches times. This is the immutable condition, the 
eternal law of extensive and detached empire. 

Then, Sir, from these six capital sources—of descent, of form 
of government, of religion in the Northern Provinces, of manners 
in the Southern, of education, of the remoteness of situation 
from the first mover of government—from all these causes a 
fierce spirit of liberty has grown up. It has grown with the 
growth of the people in your Colonies, and increased with the 
increase of their wealth; a spirit that unhappily meeting with an 
exercise of power in England which, however lawful, is not 
reconcilable to any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has 
kindled this flame that is ready to consume us. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Is the introduction clear? Does it forecast the nature of 
the discussion to follow? Does it prepare you for a mathematical 
listing of items or for a broad, free consideration of successive 
matters ? 

2. Is the summary in the final paragraph adequate—that is, does 
it embrace all the vital ideas advanced in the selection? Is the 
numerical aspect of the summary emphasized, subordinated, or com- 

367 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


pletely submerged? Are the last ten words a distracting element 
or in effect a powerful summary? 

3. In the body of the selection Burke devotes one paragraph 
each to the six causes of American discontent. Does his treatment 
become mechanical? Are the transitions monotonous or varied? 
Make a list of all words and expressions used to effect transitions 
between paragraphs. 

4. Study all the relationships within paragraphs—that is, the re¬ 
lationships between sentences and between parts of the same sentence. 
Determine whether the relationship is properly one of coordination, 
subordination, cause and effect, or the like. Does Burke ever mis¬ 
lead us as to the true relationship? Study his connectives. ‘Are 
they adequate, accurate? Can you improve upon any of them? 

ANIMAL CHEMISTRY* 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

In this selection the simple chemistry of the human body is made 
more obvious through the comparison with the chemistry of an egg. 
Given his general idea to bring out, Holmes exhibits skilled carpentry 
in presenting it to us. 

We will begin our talk with a few words on Animal 
Chemistry. 

Take one of these boiled eggs, which has been ravished from 
a brilliant possible future, and instead of sacrificing it to a 
common appetite, devote it to the nobler hunger for knowledge. 
You know that the effect of boiling has been to harden it, and 
that if a little overdone it becomes quite firm in texture, the 
change pervading both the white and the yolk. Careful observa¬ 
tion shows that this change takes place at about 150° of Fahren¬ 
heit’s thermometer.—The substance which thus hardens or 
coagulates is called albumen. As this forms the bulk of the 
egg, it must be the raw material of the future chicken. There 
is some oil, with a little coloring matter, and there is the earthy 
shell, with a thin skin lining it; but all these are in small quan- 

* From Pages from an Old Volume of Life. 

368 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


tity compared to the albumen. You see then that an egg con¬ 
tains substances which may be coagulated into your breakfast 
by hot water, or into a chicken by the milder prolonged warmth 
of the mother’s body. 

We can push the analysis further without any laboratory 
other than our breakfast-room. 

At the larger end of the egg, as you may have noticed on 
breaking it, is a small space containing nothing but air, a 
mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, as you know. If you use a 
silver spoon in eating an egg, it becomes discolored, as you may 
have observed, which is one of the familiar effects of sulphur. 
It is this which gives a neglected egg its peculiar aggressive 
atmospheric effects. Heat the whole contents of the shell, or, 
for convenience, a small portion of them, gently for a while, 
and you will have left nothing but a thin scale, representing only 
a small fraction of the original weight of the contents before 
drying. That which has been driven off is water, as you may 
easily see by letting the steam condense on a cold surface. But 
water, as you remember, consists of oxygen and hydrogen. Now 
lay this dried scale on the shovel and burn it until it turns black. 
What you have on the shovel is animal charcoal or carbon. If 
you burn this black crust to ashes, a chemist will, on examining 
these ashes, find for you small quantities of various salts, con¬ 
taining phosphorus, chlorine, potash, soda, magnesia, in various 
combinations, and a little iron. You can burn the egg-shell and 
see for yourself that it becomes changed into lime, the heat 
driving off the carbonic acid which made it a carbonate. 


Oxygen. 

Hydrogen. 

Carbon. 

Nitrogen. 

Sulphur. 

Lime. 


Iron. 

Potash. 

Soda. 

Magnesia. 

Phosphorus. 

Chlorine. 


369 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


This is the list of simple elements to be found in an egg. You 
have detected six of them by your fireside chemistry; the others 
must be in very small quantity, as they are all contained in the 
pinch of ashes which remains after you have burned all that 
is combustible in your egg. 

Now this egg is going, or rather was going, to become a 
chicken; that is, an animal with flesh and blood and bones, with 
a brain and nerves, with eyes ready to see and ears ready to 
hear, with organs all ready to go to work, and a voice ready to 
be heard the moment it is let out of its shell. The elements of 
the egg have been separated and recombined, but nothing has 
been added to them except what may have passed through the 
shell. Just these twelve elements are to be found in the chicken, 
no more, no less. 

Just these same twelve elements, with the merest traces of two 
or three other substances, make up the human body. Expende 
Hannibalerm; weigh the great general, the great thinker, his 
frame also may be resolved into a breath of air, a wave of 
water, a charred cinder, a fragment of lime-salts, and a few 
grains of mineral and saline matter which the earth has lent 
him, all easily reducible to the material forms enumerated in this 
brief catalogue. 

All these simple substances which make up the egg, the 
chicken, the human body, are found in the air, the water, or 
the earth. All living things borrow their whole bodies from 
inanimate matter, directly or indirectly. But of the simple 
substances found in nature, not more than a quarter, or some¬ 
thing less than that, are found in the most complex living body. 
The forty-five or fifty others have no business in our organiza¬ 
tion. Thus we must have iron in our blood, but we must not 
have lead in it, or we shall be liable to colic and palsy. Gold 
and silver are very well in our pockets, but have no place in 
our system. Most of us have seen one or more unfortunates 
whose skins were permanently stained of a dark bluish tint in 

370 


TRANSITIONS AND SUMMARIES 


consequence of the prolonged use of a preparation of silver 
which has often been prescribed for the cure of epilepsy. 

This, then, is the great fact of animal chemistry; a few 
simple substances, borrowed from the surrounding elements, 
give us the albumen and oil and other constituents of the egg, 
and, arranging themselves differently during the process of 
incubation, form all the tissues of the animal body. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1. Trace the sequence of paragraphs, and study the management 
of the transitions. 

2. Study the relationships in thought within the several sentences 
of the second paragraph and the fourth paragraph. Does Holmes 
correlate properly, subordinate properly, understand cause and effect? 

3. Is the summary in the final paragraph adequate? pleasing? 

4. Write as interesting a theme as you can to show one of the 
following: 

The principle upon which some piece of mechanism operates 

The likeness between some struggle carried on by a lower animal 
and a struggle carried on by man 

The likeness between some object in nature and some principle in 
your own thinking or writing 

The analogy that has most impressed you. 


371 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


Hitherto most of your themes have been short. It is well 
that they have been. Most of the writing you will do in after 
life will be of comparatively brief compass, and if the choice 
were forced upon you, your practice should fit you for the 
actual rather than for the merely conceivable needs of the future. 
In reality, however, no such choice confronts you. Long com¬ 
positions differ from short in bulk rather than in kind. In 
mastering the structure of short themes you have mastered the 
essential structure of long. 

Though you need acquire a knowledge of no new principles 
in writing longer themes, you do need the stimulus and the 
experience of proving, once or twice at least, that you are 
capable of extended effort. In order that your work may be 
as fruitful as possible you should take especial pains to choose 
a congenial subject. Having found it, you have only to apply 
the principles you have learned already, to lay your plans well, 
and to make sure that your energy shall not flag. If you do 
all this and really have something to say, you need not disturb 
yourself as to the length of what you write. You may prolong 
it into an article or even into a book. Material truly interesting 
and truly well handled will, in spite of its length, find readers. 

Before beginning the actual writing of an extended com¬ 
position, it may be well to make an outline of your material, 
especially if the subject is one of exposition or argumentation. 
If a formal outline seems inadvisable, at least get your material 
shaped in your mind before you begin to write. 

372 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


THE MORNING OF CIRCUS DAY * 

Booth Tarkington 

This selection illustrates sustained description. It shows us suc¬ 
cessively the country folk coming into town, the waiting swarms of 
people, and at length the parade. Over the whole piece hang dust 
and heat, the good-nature, exhilaration, and weariness of the crowds, 
and an overwhelming sense of rusticity on a day of splendor. 

The length of Main Street and all the Square resounded with 
the rattle of vehicles of every kind. Since earliest dawn they 
had been pouring into the village, a long procession on every 
country road. There were great red and blue farm wagons, 
drawn by splendid Clydesdales; the elders of the family on the 
front seat and on boards laid from side to side in front, or 
on chairs placed close behind, while, in the deep beds back of 
these, children tumbled in the straw, or peeped over the sides, 
rosy-cheeked and laughing, eyes alight with blissful anticipa¬ 
tions. There were more pretentious two-seated cut-enders and 
stout buckboards, loaded down with merrymakers, four on a 
seat meant for two; there were rattle-trap phaetons and com¬ 
fortable carry-alls drawn by steady spans; and, now and then, 
mule-teams bringing happy negroes, ready to squander all on 
the first Georgia watermelons and cider. Every vehicle con¬ 
tained heaping baskets of good things to eat (the previous night 
had been a woeful Bartholomew for Carlow chickens) and 
underneath, where the dogs paced faithfully, swung buckets and 
fodder for the horses, while colts innumerable trotted close to 
the maternal flanks, viewing the world with their big, new eyes 
in frisky surprise. 

Here and there the trim side-bar buggy of some prosperous 
farmer’s son, escorting his sweetheart, flashed along the road, 
the young mare stepping out in pride of blood to pass the line 

* The Gentleman from Indiana, Chapter VII. Reprinted by permission of 
Doubleday, Page & Co. 


373 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


of wagons, the youth who held the reins, resplendent in Sunday 
best and even better, his scorched brown face glowing with a 
fine belief in the superiority of both his steed and his lady; 
the latter beaming out upon life and rejoicing in the light-blue 
ribbons on her hat, the light-blue ribbon around her waist, the 
light-blue, silk half-mittens on her hands, and the beautiful red 
coral necklace about her neck and the red coral buttons that 
fastened her gown in the back. 

The air was full of exhilaration; everybody was laughing and 
shouting and calling greetings; for Carlow County was turning 
out, and from far and near the country people came; nay, from 
over the county line, clouds of dust rising from every thorough¬ 
fare and highway, and sweeping into town to herald their 
coming. 

Dibb Zane, the “sprinkling contractor,” had been at work with 
the town water-cart since the morning stars were bright, but he 
might as well have watered the streets with his tears, which, 
indeed, when the farmers began to come in, bringing their 
cyclones of dust, he drew nigh unto, after a spell of profanity 
as futile as his cart. 

• ••••••• 

The Square was heaving with a jostling, good-natured, happy, 
and constantly increasing crowd that overflowed on Main Street 
in both directions; and the good nature of this crowd was aug¬ 
mented in the ratio that its size increased. The streets were a 
confusion of many colors, and eager faces > filled every window 
opening on Main Street or the Square. Since nine o’clock all 
those of the court-house had been occupied, and here most of 
the damsels congregated to enjoy the spectacle of the parade, 
and their swains attended, gallantly posting themselves at 
coigns of less vantage behind the ladies. Some of the faces 
that peeped from the dark, old court-house windows were pretty, 
and some of them were not pretty; but nearly all of them were 
rosy-cheeked, and all were pleasant to see because of the good 

374 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


cheer they showed. Some of the gallants affected the airy and 
easy, entertaining the company with badinage and repartee; 
some were openly bashful. Now and then one of the latter, 
after long deliberation, constructed a laborious compliment for 
his inamorata, and, after advancing and propounding half of it, 
again retired into himself, smit with a blissful palsy. Nearly 
all of them conversed in tones that might have indicated that 
they were separated from each other by an acre lot or two. 

Here and there, along the sidewalk below, a father worked 
his way through the throng, a licorice-bedaubed cherub on one 
arm, his coat (borne with long enough) on the other; followed 
by.a mother with the other children hanging to her skirts and 
tagging exasperatingly behind, holding red and blue toy balloons 
and delectable batons of spiral-striped peppermint in tightly 
closed, sadly sticky fingers. 

A thousand cries rent the air; the strolling mountebanks and 
gypsying booth-merchants; the peanut vendors; the boys with 
palm-leaf fans for sale; the candy sellers; the popcorn peddlers; 
the Italian with the toy balloons that float like a cluster of 
colored bubbles above the heads of the crowd, and the balloons 
that wail like a baby; the red-lemonade man, shouting in the 
shrill voice that reaches everywhere and endures forever: 
“Lemo! Lemo! Ice-cole lemo! Five cents, a nickel, a half-a- 
dime, the twentiethpotofadollah! Lemo! Ice-cole lemo!”—all 
the vociferating harbingers of the circus crying their wares. 
Timid youths, in shoes covered with dust through which the 
morning polish but dimly shone, and unalterably hooked by the 
arm to blushing maidens, bought recklessly of peanuts, of candy, 
of popcorn, of all known sweetmeats, perchance; and forced 
their way to the lemonade stands; and there, all shyly, silently 
sipped the crimson-stained ambrosia. Everywhere the hawkers 
dinned, and everywhere was heard the plaintive squawk of the 
toy balloon. 

But over all rose the nasal cadence of the Cheap John, reek- 

375 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


ing oratory from his big wagon on the corner: “Walk up, walk 
up, walk up, ladies and gents! Here we are! Here we are! 
Make hay while we gather the moss. Walk up, one and all. 
Here I put this solid gold ring, sumptuous and golden, eighteen 
carats, eighteen golden carats of the priceless mother of metals, 
toiled fer on the wild Pacific slope, eighteen garnteed, I put 
this golden ring, rich and golden, in the package with the hang- 
kacheef, the elegant and blue-ruled note-paper, self-writing 
pens, pencil and penholder. Who takes the lot? Who takes it, 
ladies and gents?” 

His tongue curled about his words; he seemed to love them. 
“Fer a quat-of-a-dollah! Don’t turn away, young man—you 
feller in the green necktie, there. We all see the young lady on 
your arm is a-langrishing fer the golden ring and the package. 
Faint heart never won fair wummin’. There you are, sir, and 
you’ll never regret it. Go—and be happy! Now, who’s the 
next man to git solid with his girl fer a quat-of-a-dollah? Life 
is a mysterus and unviolable shadder, my friends; who kin read 
its orgeries? To-day we are here—but to-morrow we may be 
in jail. Only a quat-of-a-dollah! We are Seventh-Day Adven¬ 
tists, ladies and gents, a-givin’ away our belongings in the awful 
face of Michael, fer a quat-of-a-dollah. The same price fer 
each-an-devery individual, lady and gent, man, wummin, wife 
and child, and happiness to one and all fer a quat-of-a-dollah!” 

Down the middle of the street, kept open between the waiting 
crowds, ran barefoot boys, many of whom had not slept at home, 
but had kept vigil in the night mists for the coming of the show, 
and, having seen the muffled pageant arrive, swathed, and with 
no pomp and panoply, had returned to town, rioting through 
jewelled cobwebs in the morning fields, happy in the pride of 
knowledge of what went on behind the scenes. To-night, or 
to-morrow, the runaways would face a woodshed reckoning 
with outraged ancestry; but now they caracoled in the dust with 
no thought of the grim deeds to be done upon them. 

376 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


In the court-house yard, and so sinning in the very eye of 
the law, two swarthy, shifty-looking gentlemen were operating 
(with some greasy walnut shells and a pea) what the fanciful or 
unsophisticated might have been pleased to call a game of 
chance; and the most intent spectator of the group around them 
was Mr. James Bardlock, the Town Marshal. He was simply 
and unofficially and earnestly interested. Thus the eye of Jus¬ 
tice may not be said to have winked upon the nefariousness now 
under its vision; it gazed with strong curiosity, an itch to 
dabble, and (it must be admitted) a growing hope of profit. 
The game was so direct and the player so sure. Several coun¬ 
trymen had won small sums, and one, a charmingly rustic 
stranger, with a peculiar accent (he said that him and his goil 
should now have a smoot’ old time off his winninks—though 
the lady was not manifested), had won twenty-five dollars with 
no trouble at all. The two operators seemed depressed, declar¬ 
ing the luck against them and the Plattville people too brilliant 
at the game. 

It was wonderful how the young couples worked their way 
arm-in-arm through the thickest crowds, never separating. Even 
at the lemonade stands they drank holding the glasses in their 
outer hands—such are the sacrifices demanded by etiquette. 
But, observing the gracious outpouring of fortune upon the rustic 
with the rare accent, a youth in a green tie disengaged his arm— 
for the first time in two hours—from that of a girl upon whose 
finger there shone a ring, sumptuous and golden, and, conduct¬ 
ing her to a corner of the yard, bade her remain there until he 
returned. He had to speak to Hartley Bowlder, he explained. 

Then he plunged, red-faced and excited, into the circle about 
the shell manipulators, and offered to lay a wager. 

“HoF on there, Hen Fentriss,” thickly objected a flushed 
young man beside him, “iss my turn.” 

“I’m first, Hartley,” returned the other. “You can hold yer 
hosses a minute, I reckon.” 


377 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


“Plenty fer each and all, chents,” interrupted one of the shell- 
men. “Place yer spondulicks on de little ball. W’ich is de 
next lucky one to win our money? Chent bets four sixty-five 
he seen de little ball go under de middle shell. Up she comes! 
Dis time we wins; Plattville can’t win every time. Who’s de 
next chent?” 

Fentriss edged slowly out of the circle, abashed, and with 
rapidly whitening cheeks. He paused for a moment, outside, 
slowly realizing that all his money had gone in one wild, blind 
whirl—the money he had earned so hard and saved so hard, to 
make a holiday for his sweetheart and himself. He stole one 
glance around the building to where a patient figure waited for 
him. Then he fled down a side alley and soon was out upon the 
country road, tramping soddenly homeward through the dust, 
his chin sunk in his breast and his hands clenched tight at his 
sides. Now and then he stopped and bitterly hurled a stone 
at a piping bird on a fence, or gay Bob White in the fields. At 
noon the patient figure was still waiting in the corner of the 
court-house yard, meekly twisting the golden ring upon her 
finger. 

But the flushed young man who had spoken thickly to her 
deserter drew an envied roll of bankbills from his pocket and 
began to bet with tipsy caution, while the circle about the gam¬ 
blers watched with fervid interest, especially Mr. Bardlock, 
Town Marshal. 

There was a fanfare of trumpets in the east. Lines of people 
rushed for the street, and, as one looked down on the straw hats 
and sunbonnets and many kinds of finer head apparel, tossing 
forward, they seemed like surf sweeping up the long beaches. 

She was coming at last. The boys whooped in the middle of 
the street; some tossed their arms to heaven, others expressed 
their emotion by somersaults; those most deeply moved walked 
on their hands. In the distance one saw, over the heads of the 

378 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


multitude, tossing banners and the moving crests of triumphal 
cars, where “cohorts were shining in purple and gold.” She 
was coming. After all the false alarms and disappointments, 
she was coming! 

There was another flourish of music. Immediately all the 
band gave sound, and then, with blare of brass and the crash of 
drums, the glory of the parade burst upon Plattville. Glory in 
the utmost! The resistless impetus of the march-time music; 
the flare of royal banners, of pennons on the breeze; the smiling 
of beautiful Court Ladies and great, silken Nobles; the swaying 
of howdahs on camel and elephant, and the awesome shaking 
of the earth beneath the elephant’s feet, and the gleam of his 
small but devastating eye . . .; then the badinage of the clown, 
creaking along in his donkey cart; the terrific recklessness of 
the spangled hero who was drawn by in a cage with two striped 
tigers; the spirit of the prancing steeds that drew the rumbling 
chariots, and the grace of the helmeted charioteers; the splendor 
of the cars and the magnificence of the paintings with which 
they were adorned; the ecstasy of all this glittering, shining, 
gorgeous pageantry needed even more than walking on your 
hands to express. 

Last of all came the tooting calliope, followed by swarms of 
boys as it executed, “Wait till the clouds roll by, Jennie” with 
infinite dash and gusto. 


ASSIGNMENT 

Into a long theme on one of these topics put all the variety, con¬ 
trast, color, and vividness you can: 

My First Day in a City 
My First Day in the Country 

The Country We Passed Through on That Automobile Trip 

An Excursion on the Lake 

The Street Fair 

The Time We Gave a Show 

When the Circus Came to Town 

379 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


A Trip Through the Market 

The Most Gorgeous Spectacle I Ever Beheld 

Downtown on Saturday Night. 

MEETING THE CRIME WAVE: A COMPARISON 

OF METHODS * 

Joseph Gollomb 

This selection illustrates sustained exposition. After a general 
introduction, the method of detecting criminals is presented suc¬ 
cessively for four great nations of Europe. The presentation is 
in each instance concrete, but at intervals through the selection the 
methods are generalized and compared. At the close the possibility 
of an international organization is presented. 

The crime wave now afflicting the whole world is a logical 
aftermath of the war. Economic distress—poverty, insufficient 
food, clothing, and fuel—the loosing of men’s animal passions, 
coupled with the general disorganization of our social structure, 
are producing their inevitable effect. While its manifestations 
vary, subject to local conditions, the disease knows no geographic 
boundaries, but its treatment is still largely national. More¬ 
over, the police power of the world has been rudely shaken by 
events. It needs reconstruction, revitalization, and above all in¬ 
creased international cooperation. The American has, of course, 
always taken it for granted that his police organization is the 
best on earth, his system of detection the shrewdest, most scien¬ 
tific, most persevering. Present-day New Yorkers, in the face 
of a mounting epidemic of unsolved murder and robbery, may 
perhaps entertain a lurking doubt. But it is questionable 
whether we could ever justly boast of anything in this direction 
but a mistaken pride. The actual claims of France and Britain 
—in fact and fiction—seem more valid. What have we com¬ 
parable to the great Bertillon and to M. Lecoq? What tradi¬ 
tions to equal the famous Scotland Yard organization, what hero 

* The Nation, Jan. 19, 1921. Reprinted by permission. 

38 0 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


of detection superior to Sherlock Holmes? As for Germany, 
its “verboten” has become notorious as the symbol of the omni¬ 
present and ever-watchful arm of the law. We shall do well to 
study our neighbors’ methods. 

The tracking by society of the men who prey on man is al¬ 
ready something of a sport and sometimes an art—in fiction. In 
real life it is a crusade, a science, a profession; there is no 
sporting ethics in it as yet and police prefer the shortest way to 
the kill whether it is good sport, art, or neither. But the quarry 
has grown clever with science and technique, and the hunter 
has had to keep up with him. The result is that so infinitely 
complex, delicate, and manifold have become the means and 
weapons of crime and of man hunting with X-ray, dictaphone, 
micro-photography, chemical reagents, psychoanalysis, organ¬ 
ization technique, card cataloguing, and ten thousand other 
devices that the modern detective has come to exercise some¬ 
thing of the care of the artist in choosing weapon and trail in 
his hunt. It is interesting to observe, therefore, the differences 
in the manner of man hunting shown by the detective systems of 
London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, and how in their hunting 
they reveal their racial traits. Let us consider four actual 
cases. 

In a half-asleep residential section of east London is a neg¬ 
lected three-story private dwelling with heavy shutters and doors, 
inconspicuous and unattractive. It was just the kind of house 
for which an old man, calling himself Smithers, had been look¬ 
ing. For twenty years he had been accumulating money by 
buying all kinds of objects and no questions asked. He could 
drive a shrewd bargain and his business associates usually 
acceded to his terms, though not without many a curse and 
often more or less impressive threats. Smithers did not mind 
the former; but as he grew more and more rich he worried about 
the threats. He knew his customers. So he tried to hide his 
riches and lived penuriously. Fear of being murdered and 

381 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 

robbed drove him from his business to a retreat. The house, 
by reason of its inconspicuousness, its strong doors and windows, 
attracted him and he bought it. He secured every possible en¬ 
trance with bars and double locks and had his home wired so 
that nobody could touch a door knob, window sash, or grating 
without setting an electric bell ringing. In addition he arranged 
it so that if any one detected the wiring and cut it, the loosened 
wire, dragged down by a leaden weight, would fall on a cart¬ 
ridge and exploding it would give as effective notice of danger 
as the electric bell. He lived by himself, received no one, and 
attracted as little attention as he could. 

Nevertheless, one day tradesmen began to wonder why he did 
not take in off the front steps the articles he had ordered 
delivered. The police were notified, an entrance was forced. 
Smithers was found murdered. The burglar alarm had been 
cut, under the fallen leaden weight was found a pad of cloth and 
the cartridge unexploded. A strong-box had been rifled. Who¬ 
ever had done the business was no novice. There was not a 
finger-print to be found, the work having obviously been done 
in gloves. The only clue left for the police to work on was 
a small dark-lantern, a child’s toy without doubt, which had 
been contemptuously left behind by the burglars. 

Scotland Yard went to work on the case characteristically. 
A conference was held of the Central Office Squad, consisting of 
four chief inspectors, ten detective inspectors, nineteen detective 
sergeants, and fourteen detective constables. They went at their 
problem like a team, captained, but working as one. There 
was no star performer. With only the child’s lantern to work 
on as a clue, the problem became at first mere drudgery. A 
tedious round of manufacturers and toy shops followed to deter¬ 
mine if possible where that lantern was bought. In this search 
team-work was everything, individual cleverness nothing. 
Finally it seemed probable that the lantern was such as a mother 

382 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


in one of several tenement districts in London would buy for a 
seven-year-old child. 

A simple plan was devised as the next phase of the hunt. 
A detective who had a seven-year-old son was assigned to allow 
his boy to play with the lantern in the streets of the quarter from 
which it might have come and to see what happened. For a 
week nothing at all happened, and father and son were asked to 
repeat their task in the adjoining district. Here the simple 
device brought no better results and again they were assigned 
new territory. This happened several times, until it began to 
look as though nothing at all would come of it. But with the 
doggedness of the race Scotland Yard hung on to the trail. 
Then one day a little boy of the quarter edged up to the police¬ 
man’s son, looked sharply at the lantern with which the young¬ 
ster was playing, and set up a wail. 

“I want mah lantern!” he said. 

“’Tain’t your lantern!” the policeman’s son retorted in¬ 
dignantly. 

“Yes, it is! I know it is!” 

The detective came forward. “Are you sure?” he asked, 
gently. “Because my son has had it for many weeks, you know.” 

“ ’Ere, I ’ll prove it’s mine,” the stranger boy said. “W’en 
mah wick burned out I cut off a little piece of my sister’s flannel 
petticoat for a new wick.” 

The detective opened the lantern and examining the wick 
found it to be of flannel, as the boy had said. “We ’ll have to 
ask your mother about this,” the detective said. “If you ’re 
telling the truth you shall have your lantern back.” 

The three went to the boy’s mother, a widow who kept board¬ 
ers. The woman, honest and hard working, confirmed her son’s 
claim. The detective kept his word, returned the lantern, but 
questioning the widow further found out that the boy missed 
the lantern at about the same time that two of her boarders had 

383 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


left without paying their board bills. One had told her that 
he was an electrician, the other a plumber’s apprentice, and 
she remembered seeing tools of their trade, or what she thought 
were such, in their room. 

Followed then another series of weary searches by the men 
of Scotland Yard; searches among young plumbers and among 
electricians; in the underworld for two young fellows answering 
to the descriptions the widow gave; in the files of criminal rec¬ 
ords in Scotland Yard; in more expensive boarding houses and 
in dance resorts. Nothing short of a big organization imbued 
with team work and bulldog perseverance could have accom¬ 
plished that search. But at last two young men were found 
whom the widow, unknown to them, identified as her former 
boarders. 

The police had as yet nothing more serious against them than 
unpaid board bills. So they secretly kept them under surveil- 
- lance. It was thus they learned that the young men were fond 
of target shooting with a revolver at trees in the country. The 
bullets extracted from the trees proved to be of the same excep¬ 
tionally large caliber as that found in the murdered miser’s 
brain. Tactfully, patiently, a corps of detectives searched into 
the past of the two men, each finding out some seemingly un¬ 
important item. But the whole was becoming a net in which one 
day the two men found themselves inextricably fast on the 
charge of the murder and robbery of Smithers. 

Now let us contrast with this man hunt another under similar 
circumstances in Paris. There had been a remarkable series of 
burglaries in the aristocratic Etoile section. In each case the 
burglar—for there was every sign that one man was committing 
them—took art objects of considerable value but never of such 
marked uniqueness that they could not be disposed of without 
difficulty or danger. Indeed the man’s skill in entering well- 
guarded homes, in gathering his loot, and in disposing of it 
was such that the Paris police had not a trace to work on. This 

38 4 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


man, too, worked with gloves, so that there was never a finger¬ 
print left of his visits. 

The Paris police, so to speak, ran around in circles trying 
to find his trail. One theory was as little fruitful as another 
and each man on the hunt followed his own. One detective- 
inspector, let us call him Dornay, struck out on a lone hunt. 
Posing as a nouveau-riche art collector and bon vivant, he made 
scores of acquaintances in the fast set where his quarry might 
conceivably be found. In this way he became interested in a 
rather quiet, alert man who knew where good values in art 
objects could be had. Dornay showed more friendliness than 
the other accepted and, apparently hurt in feelings, the detective 
thereafter avoided the unsociable man, whom he knew by the 
name of Laroche. Thus far Dornay had only a nebulous theory 
about Laroche’s connection with the elusive burglar he was 
hunting. It was so nebulous that the detective could not con¬ 
vince his colleagues sufficiently to secure the number of men 
needed to keep track of all of Laroche’s movements, for the lat¬ 
ter had an uncanny way of eluding Dornay’s vigilance. There¬ 
upon Dornay determined to get Laroche unconsciously either to 
clear or to implicate himself. Watching one night outside 
Laroche’s hotel he saw the latter leave in evening dress. Dor¬ 
nay stole up to the man’s room, let himself in with a skeleton 
key, and made a thorough search. The only discoveries that 
interested him were a much-used pair of gloves and the water 
caraffe and drinking glass Laroche kept on a little stand to the 
left of his bed. With a file Dornay rubbed gently at a spot in 
the thumb of the left-hand glove until little more than a thin 
filament of chamois remained, which, however would not be 
noticeable at a careless glance. Then the detective carefully 
polished clean the outsides of the caraffe and the drinking 
glass. He took nothing with him when he left. But next morn¬ 
ing, when Laroche again left the hotel Dornay stole back into 
the room and eagerly examined the caraffe and the drinking 

385 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


glass. With a cameFs-hair brush he dusted some graphite 
powder on it until Laroche’s finger-prints showed clearly. Sub¬ 
stituting other glassware Dornay carefully brought Laroche’s to 
police headquarters. 

Three weeks later still another burglary was reported, bear¬ 
ing all the marks of the elusive burglar. But this time the 
police found faint impressions of a left thumb—and only that. 
It was, however, sufficient. Dornay’s instinct and little plot 
had won. As he knew, the moisture of the human finger is 
sufficient to leave a print even through gloves if the intervening 
texture is thin. And the finger-prints on the scene of the latest 
burglary were identical with those on Laroche’s caraffe and 
drinking glass. 

Call it Anglo-Saxon love of team-play, or a racial disinclina¬ 
tion of the individual to shove himself forward at the expense 
of the group interest, or whatever other trait it illustrates, the 
Scotland Yard treatment of the Smithers murder mystery was 
characteristic. Certainly the instinct for organization and or¬ 
ganized effort, which has made Scotland Yard the foremost 
man-hunting medium in the world, is the inspiration not of indi¬ 
viduals but of the race. In contrast in method was the Paris 
police treatment of the Laroche burglaries. The Frenchman is 
keenly individual in his work. It makes him less patient, 
therefore less efficient in organization, and consequently throws 
him back again on individual effort. He is much more prone, 
as a detective, to hunt by himself than with his colleagues. 

Like the Anglo-Saxon gift for organization is the German 
passion for it. But there is a vital difference between the two 
in the outcome of the organization, a difference which is illus¬ 
trated in the treatment by the Berlin detective force of a murder 
mystery that occurred in that city several years ago. The 
under-secretary for one of the important governmental depart¬ 
ments was found dead near his home in a Berlin suburb. He 
had evidently been seized from behind, garroted until dead, 

386 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


dragged into an alley and robbed. It was not till late the next 
day that his body was found; no one had been seen lurking 
about the scene of the crime; so that the police had practically 
nothing to work on, other than the manner of the crime. 

But they have a machine in the Berlin police department that 
works almost automatically in the solution of such mysteries. 
It is typically a German product in the thoroughness of its 
organization, in the ruthlessness of its operation, in the vastness 
and at the same time in the minuteness of its product. Its prin¬ 
cipal part is the Meldewesen. Every citizen and visitor in Ger¬ 
many, the former from the day of his birth, the latter from the 
day of arrival, is recorded at police headquarters, a card for each 
individual, and every card is kept up to date. If, for instance, 
the police want to know something about Carl Schmidt, respect¬ 
able citizen, in three minutes after his name reaches police 
headquarters they know the date, place, and circumstances of his 
birth, a brief history of each of his parents—if German, a cross- 
reference to their individual cards will give a complete history; 
his education, religion, successive residences, dates of removals, 
names of business and other associates—again cross-references 
afford fuller information on each of these; the name of his wife, 
date of marriage, names, and other data of his children; dates 
of the death of any of the family, place of burial; names and 
histories of servants, employees, etc. At Berlin this Meldewesen 
department contains over 20,000,000 cards today, occupies 158 
rooms, requires 290 employees, and is daily growing in size. 
The cards of names commencing with H alone take up ten rooms, 
S requiring seventeen. 

What happens to any individual in Germany who fails to 
register can be seen in the working of the Razzia system, which 
is used as a complement to the Meldewesen, and which the police 
of Berlin proceeded to use in the case of the strangled under¬ 
secretary. The Razzia consists of police raids without warrants 
on gathering places of every kind and even on private dwellings. 

387 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


Every person caught in such a raid is required to give a complete 
account of himself or herself. This account is checked up with 
the record in Meldewesen. If there is a discrepancy, it means 
anything from a fine, for a first offense for failing to register, to 
prison if it is repeated. 

In this particular case the Berlin police raided Jungfernheide, 
an amusement park. Of the people there, three hundred could 
not give a clear account of discrepancies between their status 
then and what the Meldewesen showed. They were all arrested 
and a minute investigation of each case begun. Out of the three 
hundred sixty were found to be “wanted” by the police of other 
cities for various crimes. At the same time that this sifting 
was going on a special “murder commission,” appointed to deal 
only with this particular case, was proceeding with coordinating 
investigations. Such a commission consisting of seven or eight 
men as a rule, but calling in as many others as necessary, usually 
includes three or four of the higher officials of the detective 
force, a police surgeon, a photographer, and one or two men 
from some highly specialized detective squad. There are thirty- 
one such squads, each sharply specialized. These squads are 
known by numbers and the classes of crimes they deal with. 
For instance: 1. Church thefts, counterfeiting, safe-breaking. 
2. Thefts on stairs, streets, squares, hallways, cemeteries, gar¬ 
dens, lead pipes, zinc, etc. 6. Larcenies in flats, tenements, 
apartments. 7. Burglaries in flats, tenements, apartments. 11. 
Thefts of overcoats, umbrellas, canes, in restaurants, waiting 
rooms, institutions, etc. 24. Usury, postal frauds. 31. Perjury. 

To the special commission in this case were added two mem¬ 
bers of a squad specializing on highway robberies and an expert 
on stranglers. These men sifted out the mountain of cards 
dealing with every individual who could even in the remotest 
way be suspected of a possible connection with the murder of 
Under-Secretary Rheinthal. Meanwhile forty-two individuals 
caught in the Jungfernheide were waiting in prison together with 

388 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


other suspects arrested without warrant or charge. The search 
revealed that one of the women detained was the mistress of a 
man against whom were recorded in the police departments of 
two cities three former highway robberies and a burglary in 
which the victim w T as found nearly dead of strangulation, and 
through the elaborate system of records of the man’s accomplices, 
friends, and family, he was finally caught. Once in the clutches 
of the police the celebrated method of “sweating” or “third 
degree,” which includes every possible means of coercion, pinned 
the man to the crime itself and he confessed. 

Clearly, then, what solved the Rheinthal mystery was a ma¬ 
chine, which is what the German passion for organization pro¬ 
duces, rather than a team, as in the case of Scotland Yard. 
With the Germans organization reduces its human elements to 
cogs and parts of an automaton. In England it binds human 
beings into a group, which retains initiative on the part of the 
individual and adds to it the increased competence of the 
group. In France organization is the minor fact, the individual 
is everything. 

Aside from the emphasis which national and racial traits give 
to their different ways of man hunting, these things are also 
determined by the manner in which men are chosen in these 
countries to become detectives. In England the instinct is 
against the creation of a man-hunting class. Scotland Yard, 
therefore, looks for its raw material among the common people, 
preferably those near the soil. The Metropolitan Police send 
scouting teams into the country and offer sufficiently inviting 
terms to splendid physical specimens to join the police force of 
London. They investigate most carefully the moral character of 
the applicants, take the successful ones to London, and school 
them to become one of the world-famous force of “bobbies.” 
Then if a man shows special aptitude for detective work he has 
to pass an examination, is given a special training in the 
detective school of Scotland Yard, and is allowed to work his 

389 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


way up to the top of the system as fast as merit entitles him 
to promotion. Three elements in his education are constantly 
stressed—the jealously guarded right of every citizen to untram¬ 
meled freedom until sufficient evidence is available to justify 
arrest; the subordination of individual benefit to the good of 
the group; the duty of every individual to develop initiative and 
some degree of specialization. 

In Germany the practice is to limit the detective force to 
men who have had at least nine years’ training in the regular 
army. By the time a candidate becomes a member of the detec¬ 
tive staff he is usually past the plastic stage of life and set in 
his ways. His army life has drilled every vestige of individual¬ 
ity out of him. He is confronted with a future in which he can 
rise only a grade or two, no matter how efficient he turns out to 
be. The higher ranks in the service can be reached only through 
a university training. The result is that the German detective 
can be depended upon only to follow a routine. It is a machine 
that the German system demands, rather than an organization. 

In Vienna the detective system can draw on neither a people 
gifted with regimentalized efficiency, nor the individual efficiency 
of the Scotland Yard man or the French detective. Yet the 
man hunting done by the Vienna police equals in efficiency any 
other in Europe. For, in the professorial chairs, the laboratories, 
and the research departments of Austrian universities man hunt¬ 
ing has attained its highest development. In Vienna it is not 
organization or the individual detective or a marvelous machine 
that hunts the criminal most successfully, but modern science 
with its microscope, chemical reagents, the orderly processes of 
inductive reasoning, carried out by professors, and a minimum 
contribution on the part of the professional detective. 

Let us illustrate with the murder and robbery of a millionaire 
recluse who lived in a villa on the border of Wiener Wald. He 
was found dead in his barn, his skull crushed in with some 
blunt instrument which could not be found. The only clue left 

390 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


by the murderer was a workman’s cap. Dr. Gross in his cele¬ 
brated work on criminal investigation, which is the most exhaus¬ 
tive study of the science of man hunting in existence, stresses 
the importance of hairs and dust as clues. The inside of the 
cap, therefore, was carefully examined and two hairs found, 
which were not those of the murdered man. These hairs were 
placed under the microscope, experts called in, and the following 
was ascertained as the description of the man to whom those 
hairs belonged: “Man about forty-five years old; robust con¬ 
stitution; turning bald; brown hair, nearly gray and recently 
cut.” The cap was placed in a tough paper bag, sealed, and 
beaten with a stick as hard as possible. When it was opened 
again there was dust at the bottom of the bag. This dust was 
microscopically examined and chemically analyzed. Disregard¬ 
ing the elements that came obviously from the floor of the barn 
where the cap was found it was discovered that wood dust, such 
as is found in the shop of a carpenter, predominated. But there 
were also found minute particles of glue. The combination 
pointed to a wood joiner. 

There was such a man living near the scene of the crime, 
who also answered to the description derived from the two hairs, 
a man of morose temperament rendered desperate by drink 
and poverty. A search of his premises for the instrument which 
might have caused the death of the murdered man yielded a 
hammer and two mortar pestles. The hammer with its octag¬ 
onal nose was found incapable of inflicting the shape of the 
wound in the man’s skull. The pestles fitted. There were two 
of them, an iron one rusted in spots and a polished brass one. 
The rust spots on the iron one were found on chemical analysis 
to be due to water. But under the metal polish of the brass 
pestle, when it was carefully scraped away, were found remnants 
of stains which on analysis and microscopic examination proved 
to be blood. By a system of reagents developed by Professor 
Uhlenhut the blood was found to be that of the murdered man. 

39i 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


After the investigation had proceeded a little further the mur¬ 
derer broke down and confessed his guilt. 

Nothing is too small or insignificant to furnish clues to the 
Vienna school of laboratory detectives. The marks of teeth on 
a cigar holder left on the scene of the murder were found to 
indicate unusually long canines, a clue which led to the mur¬ 
derer. The dust found in pocket knives or clasp knives with 
which crimes had been committed brought many a criminal to 
justice wholly through laboratory methods. 

The readiness of the German police to search, arrest, and 
detain citizens on the slightest ground, and the methods em¬ 
ployed by the French police in extracting confessions from 
suspected persons vary fundamentally from the procedure fol¬ 
lowed in man hunting by the English. When a Scotland Yard 
man, backed with a warrant, makes an arrest he is compelled by 
law to say to his prisoner: “Do you wish to make any state¬ 
ment? I warn you that anything you say now may be used 
against you. You are not required to make any statement.” It 
is generally acknowledged that a confession extorted from an 
accused would be barred as evidence in English courts. In con¬ 
trast to this is the brilliant record made by a Paris detective in 
tricking arrested suspects into confessions. This man would 
cultivate the friendship of the accused, say, of murder. Outside 
of prison the detective would spend most of his time investi¬ 
gating not so much evidence of the prisoner’s guilt but his 
grievance against the murdered man. Then one day he would 
rush into the accused man’s cell, his face burning with indigna¬ 
tion. “My friend!” he would exclaim. “I don’t understand 
why you hesitate for one instant in confessing that you killed 
that snake! I am not a bad man myself. But if any man 
ruined my business and outraged the woman I love and did a 
tenth of the vile things that snake did to you, I would kill him 
and be proud of it!” “Isn’t that so?” the accused would ex¬ 
claim—and find himself betrayed. 

302 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


In England a man’s home is his castle and a detective is 
limited accordingly. No search can be effected, no arrest made 
without a warrant based on such evidence as will convince a 
judge in open court. In Berlin a police lieutenant boasted with 
truth to a student of European police methods: “I can have 
my neighbor arrested, his house searched, and the man detained 
in prison for twenty hours even if he is innocent as a lamb. 
And I can do it without a process beforehand or being made to 
answer for it afterward.” 

This free hand the German police has, together with the 
infinitely elaborate net in which the German public consents to 
live, gives its detectives a tremendous advantage over the Eng¬ 
lish. A man’s house in Germany is not his castle; an accused 
can be forced to testify against himself; the habeas corpus is 
not the institution it is in England. As Sir William Harcourt 
said: “You must not be surprised if the English police is 
sometimes foiled, baffled, or defeated. ... It is the price Eng¬ 
land pays for a system which she justly prefers.” On the other 
hand the German system does not necessarily argue a slavish 
people. The German is equally surprised at the English lack 
of the institution of the Meldewesen and other aids to the 
police. “What do people in England do to find where a certain 
criminal is?” a German asked in discussing the Meldewesen. 
“And why should I resent the Meldewesen when it operates to 
protect me against the criminal? Also suppose I want to find 
out the address of any man in Berlin or Dresden. For a small 
fee the police will get it for me. As for the right of search 
and arrest, well, an innocent man will not suffer long. In 
return he gets the protection of a system from which the criminal 
undergoes a maximum of insecurity.” 

As the criminal becomes more and more international in his 
operations, more and more cosmopolitan in his knowledge of 
the ways of man hunters, so the latter, too, are forced to become 
broader in their hunting methods. The science and some of 

393 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


the organization technique of the Austrians and the Germans are 
being added to the equipment of Scotland Yard. Republican 
Germany, on the other hand, is modifying some of the autocratic 
police abuses established by an imperial regime. Paris police 
are working in close harmony with Scotland Yard and are 
assimilating from them some of the lessons of team work. 
Vienna is borrowing German organization and Scotland Yard 
emphasis on the selection of the raw material of its detective 
force and has surpassed Scotland Yard in the educational train¬ 
ing it now gives its operatives. Some day there may even come 
true the dream of several visionaries among police chiefs—an 
international police headquarters in The Hague or in some other 
city from where man hunting in Europe will proceed on a world¬ 
wide scope and with the combined skill of all nations. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Write a full and careful exposition, using comparisons and sum¬ 
maries, on one of these topics: 

The Life and Work.of a Student in the Grades, in High School, 
and in College 

The Life and Work of a Boy on the Farm, the Boy Who Is Clerk 
in a Store, and the Boy Who Has a Job with a Newspaper 

The Life and Work of a Girl Who Is a Domestic Servant, the 
Girl Who Is a Stenographer, and the Girl Who Works in a 
Factory 

The Influence upon a Boy (Girl) of Belonging to a Sunday School, 
the Boy Scouts (Campfire Girls), and the Public School 

Three Types of Students: the Boy Who Must Make His Way 
through College, the Boy Who Has His Bare Expenses 
Paid, the Boy Who Has Money Lavished upon Him—What 
Each Gains and Each Loses 

An Old and a New Method of Agriculture (with suggestions of 
possible developments in the future) 

Various Means of Transportation, and the Advantages and Limi¬ 
tations of Each 

An Old and a New Method of Answering Some Class of Human 
Needs (with suggestions of future developments) 

394 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 

Old and New Methods of Municipal Government 
The Technique of Various Types of Research 
Arguments for and against the Study of Latin and Greek 
Studies That Will Be Most Useful to a Student Who Intends 
to Become a Lawyer (a Doctor, a Teacher, a Preacher, a 
Civil Engineer, a Business Man) 

The Largest Living Wild Animals of North America (South 
America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia) 

Four Venomous Snakes of the United States 
A Well-Balanced Diet (for students taking domestic science) 
Five Epoch-Making Inventions 

Eight Modern “Wonders of the World” (give reasons why they 
seem wonderful to you) 

Some Laws That Ought to Be Enacted 
Some Laws That Ought to Be Repealed 

Six Stars (or Constellations) I Know and How I Can Tell Them 
The Presidents *of the United States Who Did Not Complete 
Their Terms of Office 

My Choice for the American National Song (give reasons for 
your choice and for the rejection of other songs) 

The Comparison of the National Songs of Three Countries 
Five Old Songs That Everyone Knows (analyze why they are 
universally popular) 

The Decisive Battles in American History 
Why I Would (Would Not) Seek a Political Career 
Arguments for and against the Compulsory Study of Mathe¬ 
matics 

The Reasons Why Every Person Should Vote 
Some Things I Would Have in a Utopia (tell why you think 
your suggestions would make living more ideal) 

Why I Would Not Like to Live in a Utopia 
The Kind of Philanthropy I Believe In 
The Planets 

Three of the Greatest Rivers of the World 
Five of the Highest Mountain Peaks of the World 
The History of the Names of the Months 
The History of the Names of the Days of the Week 
Interesting Nicknames of Some States (tell why they received 
these names) 

My Three Favorite Breeds of Dogs 
Some Unjust Criticisms of Rich Men. 

395 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


WEE WILLIE WINKIE * 

Rudyard K pling 

“An officer and a gentleman” 

“Wee Willie Winkie” illustrates sustained narrative. That it 
may also illustrate the significance of point of view in narrative it 
is here told in two forms: first, in Kipling’s original version, and 
secondly, in a derived version by a college student, Miss Irene 
Peterson. The two versions are printed on opposite pages in order 
that they may be compared in detail. Kipling tells the story from 
the standpoint of an outsider, Miss Peterson from the standpoint 
of Wee Willie himself. Miss Peterson is thus enabled to emphasize 
certain elements of child psychology which are forbidden to Kipling; 
on the other hand, despite her effort to follow his incidents as 
closely as possible, and to adhere to his order of facts, she is forced 
to forego some of his freedom in plot. Whether the story has gained 
or lost from the change in point of view is not to be rashly de¬ 
termined. Let the student weigh the full evidence and decide for 
himself. 

His full name was Percival William Williams, but he picked 
up the other name in a nursery-book, and that was the end of 
the christened titles. His mother’s ayah called him Willie-Baha, 
but as he never paid the faintest attention to anything that the 
ayah said, her wisdom did not .help matters. 

His father was the Colonel of the 195th, and as soon as Wee 
Willie Winkie was old enough to understand what Military 
Discipline meant, Colonel Williams put him under it. There 
was no other way of managing the child. When he was good 
for a week, he drew good-conduct pay; and when he was bad, 
he was deprived of his good-conduct stripe. Generally he was 
bad, for India offers so many chances to little six-year-olds of 
going wrong. 

Children resent familiarity from strangers, and Wee Willie 
Winkie was a very particular child. Once he accepted an 

* From the Windsor Edition of Kipling’s Works, George Sully & Co. 

396 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


WEE WILLIE WINKLE 

Irene Peterson 

“An officer and a gentleman” 

The writing of dialect always presents a difficult problem. If the 
attempt is made to represent the words exactly as they sound, they 
will likely be read with difficulty, and will certainly, if continued 
at any length, produce monotony. Some writers merely suggest the 
dialect; then let the reader supply it for himself. Of course this 
leads to inconsistency in spelling. It will be noted that Kipling is 
not absolutely consistent, and Miss Peterson, who is telling the 
entire story from the child’s viewpoint, has introduced greater incon¬ 
sistency. Since the value of the selection consists in its being a 
student’s unaided production, it has not been edited # in any way. 
Determine for yourself whether you prefer the story as it is now 
told or whether you prefer the dialect to be absolutely consistent 
throughout. Moreover, does a person speaking dialect always pro¬ 
nounce the same word the same way? 

I’m Percival Will’am Will’ams. I used to be called Wee 
Willie Winkie. But vat’s a silly name for a man. It was me 
started it, you know. From ve Winkie in the story what went 
“calling at ve windows.” My muvver used to read it to me 
when I was a little boy. 

You see, I’m a soljer and my faver is the colonel of my 
wegiment. When I am good I have good pay and when I’m 
bad my good-conduct badge is taked off and sometimes I’m put 
under awwest. Lot of ve time I’m bad and then my faver, who 
could even awwest Coppy if he wanted, makes me stay at my 
barracks a long time. But ven, there’s so much to do what’s 
fun for boys vat’s bad, you know. 

But sometimes it’s more fun to be good. Like when I saw 


397 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


{Kipling Version ) 

acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted 
Brandis, a subaltern of the 195th, on sight. Brandis was having 
tea at the Colonel’s, and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in 
the possession of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing 
the hens round the compound. He regarded Brandis with 
gravity for at least ten minutes, and then delivered himself of 
his opinion. 

“I like you,” said he slowly, getting off his chair and coming 
over to Brandis. “I like you. I shall call you Coppy, because 
of your hair. Do you mind being called Coppy? it is because 
of ve hair, you know.” 

Here was one of the most embarrassing of Wee Willie Win- 
kie’s peculiarities. He would look at a stranger for some time, 
and then, without warning or explanation, would give him a 
name. And the name stuck. No regimental penalties could 
break Wee Willie Winkie of this habit. He lost his good- 
conduct badge for christening the Commissioner’s wife “Pobs”; 
but nothing that the Colonel could do made the Station forego 
the nickname, and Mrs. Collen remained Mrs. “Pobs” till the 
end of her stay: So Brandis was christened “Coppy,” and rose, 
therefore, in the estimation of the regiment. 

If Wee Willie Winkie took an interest in any one, the for¬ 
tunate man was envied alike by the mess and the rank and file. 
And in their envy lay no suspicion of self-interest. “The 
Colonel’s son” was idolized on his own merits entirely. Yet 
Wee Willie Winkie was not lovely. His face was permanently 
freckled, as his legs were permanently scratched, and in spite of 
his mother’s almost tearful remonstrances he had insisted upon 
having his long yellow locks cut short in the military fashion. 
“I want my hair like Sergeant Tummil’s,” said Wee Willie 
Winkie, and, his father abetting, the sacrifice was accomplished. 

Three weeks after the bestowal of his youthful affections on 

398 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version) 

Coppy. I could go in the tea room or anywhere I liked cause I 
had n’t chased ve hens round—I wanted to, vough, they act so 
silly and make such a funny noise—and I had a good-conduct 
badge. Coppy was in there drinking wiv my father and I 
watched him from ve door. He had his legs cwossed and he 
was awful tall. I liked him, and his hair, and when I knew 
I did I went over to him and said, 

“I like you. I shall call you Coppy because of your hair.” 
He looked at me like he did n’t know what I said or else like 
he was kinda hurted; so I said, “Do you mind being called 
Coppy? it is because of ve hair, you know.” 

My faver said, “This is Leftenant Brandis, Winkie.” But I 
liked Coppy better and he liked me and did n’t care if I call 
him Coppy and the other off’cers called him Coppy too. He 


[Kipling is freer to generalize about Wee 
Willie’s habits and popularity than Wee Willie 
himself is. Therefore the narrative in Miss 
Peterson’s version is here more concise.] 


399 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


{Kipling Version ) 

Lieutenant Brandis—henceforward to be called “Coppy” for 
the sake of brevity—Wee Willie Winkie was destined to behold 
strange things and far beyond his comprehension. 

Coppy returned his liking with interest. Coppy had let him 
wear for five rapturous minutes his own big sword—just as tall 
as Wee Willie Winkie. Coppy had promised him a terrier 
puppy; and Coppy had permitted him to witness the miraculous 
operation of shaving. Nay, more—Coppy had said that even 
he, Wee Willie Winkie, would rise in time to the ownership of 
a box of shiny knives, a silver soap-box and a silver-handled 
“sputter-brush,” as Wee Willie Winkie called it. Decidedly, 
there was no one except his father, who could give or take away 
good-conduct badges at pleasure, half so wise, strong, and 
valiant as Coppy with the Afghan and Egyptian medals on his 
breast. Why, then, should Coppy be guilty of the unmanly 
weakness of kissing—vehemently kissing—a “big girl,” Miss 
Allardyce to wit? In the course of a morning ride, Wee Willie 
Winkie had seen Coppy so doing, and, like the gentleman he 
was, had promptly wheeled round and cantered back to his 
groom, lest the groom should also see. 

Under ordinary circumstances he would have spoken to his 
father, but he felt instinctively that this was a matter on which 
Coppy ought first to be consulted. 

“Coppy,” shouted Wee Willie Winkie, reining up outside 
that subaltern’s bungalow early one morning—“I want to see 
you, Coppy!” 

“Come in, young ’un,” returned Coppy, who was at early 
breakfast in the midst of his dogs. “What mischief have you 
been getting into now?” 

Wee Willie Winkie had done nothing notoriously bad for 
three days, and so stood on a pinnacle of virtue. 


400 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


{Peterson Version ) 

letted me go over to his quarters by ve canal and I liked him 
better van ever. Even ve first time, he let me wear his own 
great bid sword vats most as high as me, and I looked just like 
a real big officer then. And besides he putted me on a chair 
where I could see him shaving. You have to be awful big to 
shave, you know, but Coppy says vat very soon I shall have a 
whole box of shiny knives and a silver soap box and a real 
sputter-brush and I shall shave, too. Like Coppy. Oh, I like 
Coppy. He is next strong to my father and he is not un-man-ly 
at all, very often. He is n’t hardly as manly as my faver but 
ven he’s a colonel, you know, and Coppy is just a leftenant. 

One morning when I was riding by ve canal ahead of ve 
groom, because I don’t really need to be watched, I saw Coppy 
kissing a bid girl, kissing her hard. Of course, I went back 
so ve groom could n’t see because—well, Coppy should n’t have 
been kissing Major Allardyce’s big girl at all:—even when no¬ 
body should see. It’s un-man-ly like crying over little fings, 
I fink. And ven I fought Coppy would n’t like vat ve groom 
should see. I wanted to go and tell my father, but maybe Coppy 
oughted to know first vat I’d seen him. So the after morning 
before breakfast even it was so early, I wode over to Coppy’s. 

“Coppy!” I called him when I was there—“I want to see you, 
Coppy.” 

Through ve window I could see Coppy eating his breakfast, 
and ve dogs—Coppy has the nicest dogs: he gived me a puppy 
after—vey was all round him. He saw me and called back. 

“Come in, young ’un. What misch’ef have you been getting 
into now?” 

I had had a good-conduct badge for free days so I did n’t 
say anyfing till I got off my pony and sat down in Coppy’s big 
chair like my faver does after a pawade when it’s hot and ven 
I said, 


401 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version ) 

“I’ve been doing nothing bad,” said he, curling himself into 
a long chair with a studious affectation of the Colonel’s languor 
after a hot parade. He buried his freckled nose in a tea-cup 
and, with eyes staring roundly over the rim, asked:—“I say, 
Coppy, is it pwoper to kiss big girls?” 

“By Jove! You ’re beginning early. Who do you want to kiss ?” 

“No one. My muwer’s always kissing me if I don’t stop her. 
If it is n’t pwoper, how was you kissing Major Allardyce’s big 
girl last morning, by ve canal?” 

Coppy’s brow wrinkled. He and Miss Allardyce had with 
great craft managed to keep their engagement secret for a fort¬ 
night. There were urgent and imperative reasons why Major 
Allardyce should not know how matters stood for at least an¬ 
other month, and this small marplot had discovered a great 
deal too much. 

“I saw you,” said Wee Willie Winkie calmly. “But ve groom 
did n’t see. I said, ‘Hut jao.’ ” 

“Oh, you had that much sense, you young Rip,” groaned 
poor Coppy, half amused and half angry. “And how many 
people may you have told about it?” 

“Only me myself. You did n’t tell when I twied to wide ve 
buffalo ven my pony w T as lame; and I fought you wouldn’t 
like.” 

“Winkie,” said Coppy enthusiastically, shaking the small 
hand, “you ’re the best of good fellows. Look here, you can’t 
understand all these things. One of these days—hang it, how 
can I make you see it!—I’m going to marry Miss Allardyce, 
and then she ’ll be Mrs. Coppy, as you say. If your young mind 
is so scandalized at the idea of kissing big girls, go and tell 
your father.” 

“What will happen?” said Wee Willie Winkie, who firmly 
believed that his father w T as omnipotent. 


402 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version ) 

“I’ve been doing nothing bad.” I tooked a cup of tea and 
when I was just going to drink—I could see Coppy over ve cup 
—I asked him, 

“I say, Coppy, is it pwoper to kiss big girls?” 

“By Jove! You're beginning early,” Coppy said and laughed. 
“Who do you want to kiss?” 

I don’t ever want to kiss any one and I told Coppy: 

“No one. My muvver’s always kissing me if I don’t stop 
her. If it isn’t pwoper, how was you kissing Major Allardyce’s 
big girl last morning, by ve canal?” 

Coppy did n’t say anyfing. He just made his head all winkled 
and mussed his hair and looked at me like he did n’t know what 
I had said. 

“I saw you.” I had to tell him. “But ve groom did n’t see. 
I said, ‘Hut Jao!’ ” 

“Oh, you had that much sense, you young rip,” Coppy said 
and he sounded like he was angwy but wanted to laugh too. 
“And how many people may you have told about it?” 

Coppy had forgotted, you know, vat I was a gentleman and 
an off’cer. 

“Only me myself. You did n’t tell when I twied to wide ve 
buffalo ven my pony was lame; and I fought you would n’t like!” 

Ven Coppy laughed and jumped up and shook my hand like 
I was bigger even van nearly seven and he said, 

“Winkie, you ’re the best of good fellows. Look here, you 
can't understand all these things. One of these days—hang it— 
(He was excited, you know) how can I make you see it”—I did 
know all ve time—“I’m going to marry Miss Allardyce, and 
then she ’ll be Mrs. Coppy, as you say. If your mind is so 
san’lized at ve idea of kissing big girls, go and tell your father.” 

He did n’t sound like he wanted me to do vat, though. 

“What will happen?” I asked him. 


403 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version ) 

“I shall get into trouble/’ said Coppy, playing his trump 
card with an appealing look at the holder of the ace. 

“Ven I won’t,” said Wee Willie Winkie briefly. “But my 
faver says it’s un-man-ly to be always kissing, and I did n’t fink 
you’d do vat, Coppy.” 

“I’m not always kissing, old chap. It’s only now and then, 
and when you ’re bigger you ’ll do it too. Your father meant 
it’s not good for little boys.” 

“Ah!” said Wee Willie Winkie, now fully enlightened. “It’s 
like ve sputter-brush?” 

“Exactly,” said Coppy gravely. 

“But I don’t fink I ’ll ever want to kiss big girls, nor no one, 
’cept my muvver. And I must vat, you know.” 

There was a long pause, broken by Wee Willie Winkie. 

“Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy?” 

“Awfully!” said Coppy. 

“Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha—or me?” 

“It’s in a different way,” said Coppy. “You see, one of 
these days Miss Allardyce will belong to me, but you ’ll grow up 
and command the Regiment and—all sorts of things. It’s 
quite different, you see.” 

“Very well,” said Wee Willie Winkie, rising. “If you ’re 


[Miss Peterson is freer than Kipling to 
show us the working of Wee Willie’s mind. 
Has she, on the opposite page, made good 
use of this privilege?] 


404 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


{Peterson Version ) 

Ven he looked so hurted and rumpled his hair more and said, 

“I shall get into trouble.” 

Coppy had keeped me out of trouble before and he is my 
friend; so of course I said, “Ven I won’t.” But Coppy should n’t 
have done it anyway. I guess he did n't know it was n’t pwoper. 
Maybe my faver never told him, so I did. 

“But my faver says it’s un-man-ly to be always kissing, and 
I did n't fink you’d do vat, Coppy.” 

Coppy lifted me up on ve table and put his hand on my 
shoulder like my faver does him sometimes and he told me, 

“I'm not always kissing, old chap. It’s only now and then, 
and when you ’re bigger you ’ll do it too. Your father meant 
it's not good for little boys.” 

“Ah, it’s like ve sputter-brush?” I asked and ven I knew. 

“Exactly!” said Coppy and lifted me down. But I didn’t 
fink I’d ever want to kiss big girls even when I was big. Not 
vem nor no one, ’cept my muvver. And I must vat, you know. 
But I kiss my muvver cause I love her and I did n’t know why 
Coppy kissed Miss Allardyce. She was n’t his muvver, but 
maybe he loved her anyway. 

“Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy?” I said to him. 

“Auf’ly!” Coppy smiled and nodded his head. 

Still Coppy did n’t ought to care so much about girls and I 
did n’t fink he did. “Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha— 
or me?” Coppy does like me, you know. 

“It’s in a different way,” Coppy ’splained. “You see, one 
of vese days Miss Allardyce will belong to me”—he was awful 
pwoud—“but you ’ll grow up and command the regiment and— 
all sorts of things. It’s quite different, you see.” 

I knew then and I did n’t ought to be gone so early and I was 
hungry for more van a cup of tea; so I got up and told Coppy, 

“Very well. If you ’re fond of ve big girl, I won’t tell any 

405 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version ) 

fond of ve big girl, I won’t tell any one. I must go now.” 

Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to the door, adding:— 
“You ’re the best of little fellows, Winkie. I tell you what. 
In thirty days from now you can tell if you like—tell any one 
you like.” 

Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce engagement was 
dependent on a little child’s word. Coppy, who knew Wee Wil¬ 
lie Winkie’s idea of truth, was at ease, for he felt that he would 
not break promises. Wee Willie Winkie betrayed a special and 
unusual interest in Miss Allardyce, and, slowly revolving round 
that embarrassed young lady, was used to regard her gravely 
with unwinking eye. He was trying to discover why Coppy 
should have kissed her. She was not half so nice as his own 
mother. On the other hand, she was Coppy’s property, and 
would in time belong to him. Therefore it behooved him to 
treat her with as much respect as Coppy’s big sword or shiny 
pistol. 

The idea that he shared a great secret in common with Coppy 
kept Wee Willie Winkie unusually virtuous for three weeks. 
Then the Old Adam broke out, and he made what he called a 
“camp-fire” at the bottom of the garden. How could he have 
foreseen that the flying sparks would have lighted the Colonel’s 
little hay-rick and consumed a week’s store for the horses? 
Sudden and swift'was the punishment—deprivation of the good- 
conduct badge and, most sorrowful of all, two days’ confinement 
to barracks—the house and veranda—coupled with the with¬ 
drawal of the light of his father’s countenance. 

He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, drew him¬ 
self up with a quivering under-lip, saluted, and, once clear of 

[Where has Miss Peterson sought an equiva¬ 
lent for Kipling’s sentence about the secret of 
the engagement being dependent on the child’s 
word ?] 


406 



SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version ) 

one. I must go now.” 

Coppy earned to ve door wif me and helped me on my pony— 
I can get on myself, though—. Ven he ruffled his hair again 
and when I was just going he said, 

“You ’re ve best of little fellows, Winkie. I tell you what. 
In thirty days from now you can tell if you like—tell any one 
you like.” 

Every after day then I looked at Coppy’s big girl every time 
I could see her. I looked at her all over. I did n’t fink she 
was half as nice as my muvver. I could n’t see why Coppy 
should wanted to kiss her. When I looked at her she would 
smile and her face would be pink like ve flowers by ve gate. 
I fink she thought I would tell, but Coppy knew I would n’t 
cause I had pwomised, you know, and a gentleman always never 
bweaks a pwomise. I did n’t like her much but ven she belonged 
to Coppy; so she must be precious like Coppy’s sword and shiny 
pistol and so she must n’t be hurted any at all. And he was 
awful fond of her, you know. 

I knew no one at all but Coppy and me know vat Major 
Allardyce’s big girl was going to belong to him and it’s fun to 
have a seewet all just wiv Coppy and I did n’t do anyfing bad 
for free weeks. Ven one day I made the best camp-fire at ve 
bottom of our garden. It was so big ve sparkles just went 
way up and looked like wed stars. I did n’t know vat some 
of them got on the hay till it was all burned and, oh! what 
a splen-did fire it was and I forgotted to run tell and when my 
faver found out he was angwy and he put me under awwest and 
tooked my good-conduct badge away, and for punis’ment he tole 
me to stay at my barracks—ve house and veranda are my bar¬ 
racks—for two days. I hate to be awwested and it hurted 
me and there was a funny fing in my froat, but I did n’t cry. 

I was not un-man-ful. I just saluted and went to my room and 
I stayed all by me myself and even if I did feel awful cause 

407 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version ) 

the room, ran to weep bitterly in his nursery—called by him “my 
quarters.” Coppy came in the afternoon and attempted to con¬ 
sole the culprit. 

“I’m under awwest,” said Wee Willie Winkie mournfully, 
“and I did n’t ought to speak to you.” 

Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof of the 
house—that was not forbidden—and beheld Miss Allardyce 
going for a ride. 

“Where are you going?” cried Wee Willie Winkie. 

“Across the river,” she answered, and trotted forward. 

Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay was bounded on 
the north by a river—dry in the winter. From his earliest 
years, Wee Willie Winkie had been forbidden to go across the 
river, and had noted that even Coppy—the almost almighty 
Coppy—had never set foot beyond it. Wee Willie Winkie had 
once been read to, out of a big blue book, the history of the 
Princess and the Goblins—a most wonderful tale of a land 
where the Goblins were always warring with the children of 
men until they were defeated by one Curdie. Ever since that 
date it seemed to him that the bare black and purple hills across 
the river were inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, every one 
had said that there lived the Bad Men. Even in his own house 
the lower halves of the windows were covered with green paper 
on account of the Bad Men who might, if allowed clear view, 
fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and comfortable bedrooms. 
Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end of all the Earth, 
lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Allardyce’s big girl, 
Coppy’s property, preparing to venture into their borders! 


408 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version ) 

I’d lost my badge and was in disgwace, I only cried a little and 
nobody saw. Anyway Coppy earned after. 

“I’m under awwest,” I told him, “and I did n’t ought to speak 
to you.” And he went in just a moment, but I felt better. He 
knowed I did n’t mean to burn ve hay. I just liked ve fire, you 
see. 

Ve after morning I waked up before even my ayah did and 
I did n’t want to go to sleep any again so I dwessed me and 
got on ve roof of my house. I can see Coppy’s from there and 
I wanted him. When I was there I saw Coppy’s girl come 
riding on a big horse and I called her loud, 

“Where are you going?” 

“Acwoss ve wiver,” she answered to me and before I could 
tell her any more she hitted ve horse and was way down ve 
road. 

Now the wiver is on ve north of our cantonments. In winter 
there isn’t any water at all in it, though. Ever since I first 
could wide my pony my faver and muvver and every one said I 
must n’t ever go acwoss ve wiver. And not my faver or any¬ 
body, not even Coppy, who is not afwaid of anyfing, never goes 
over there. Acwoss there are hills black and purple like hills 
in the picture in my big blue book my muvver reads to me, 
where ve goblins lived and always they killed ve men and 
hurted ve pwincess till Curdie went and killed them all every 
one ’cause it was his pwincess, you know. And I bel’eved vat 
goblins lived in ve hills acwoss ve wiver too, and my faver and 
all the guards and every one said that bad men was there And 
did n’t I know it was cause ve bad men shooted in windows and 
killed people if they can see, that all ve windows are cover’d on 
the bottom pawt? 

And now Miss Allardyce was going there,—Coppy’s big girl 
who must n’t be hurted, and going acwoss where ve bad men 
surely lived and maybe goblins, too! And Coppy didn’t know 

40Q 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version ) 

What would Coppy say if anything happened to her? If the 
Goblins ran off with her as they did with Curdie’s Princess ? 
She must at all hazards be turned back. 

The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie reflected for a mo¬ 
ment on the very terrible wrath of his father; and then—broke 
his arrest! It was a crime unspeakable. The low sun threw 
his shadow, very large and very black, on the trim garden-paths, 
as he went down to the stables and ordered his pony. It seemed 
to him in the hush of the dawn that all the big world had been 
bidden to stand still and look at Wee Willie Winkie guilty of 
mutiny. The drowsy groom handed him his mount, and, since 
the one great sin made all others insignificant, Wee Willie 
Winkie said that he was going to ride over to Coppy Sahib, and 
went out at a foot-pace, stepping on the soft mould of the 
flower-borders. 

The devastating track of the pony’s feet was the last misdeed 
that cut him off from all sympathy of Humanity. He turned 
into the road, leaned forward, and rode as fast as the pony could 
put foot to the ground in the direction of the river. 

But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can do little against 
the long canter of a Waler. Miss Allardyce was far ahead, had 
passed through the corps, beyond the Police-post, when all the 
guards were asleep, and her mount was scattering the pebbles 
of the river bed as Wee Willie Winkie left the cantonment and 
British India behind him. Bowed forward and still flogging, 
Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan territory, and could just 
see Miss Allardyce a black speck, flickering across the stony 
plain. The reason of her wandering was simple enough. Coppy, 
in a tone of too-hastily-assumed authority, had told her over 
night that she must not ride out by the river And she had gone 
to prove her own spirit and teach Coppy a lesson. 


410 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


{Peterson Version ) 

she was going and ve bad men would carry her off, and Coppy 
was awful fond of her and he would feel awful bad if she was 
hurted and he would be angwy wif me if I letted her go, but I 
was under awwest and I did n’t know what to do, at all. But I 
guessed she did n’t know about what was over there and some¬ 
body had to tell her quick and only me was up and I had to 
hurry. So I went downstai’s and ooh! but ve house was still 
and I made such a lot of noise, I fought. My faver would be 
angwy, I knowed, and I w 7 ould be in disgwace but if I did n’t 
Coppy’s girl would be killed maybe or carried off and vat was 
worse. I knew Coppy would take care of anyfing vat was mine. 
So I bwoke my awwest and that was un-man-ly when I was on 
honor and I was a little afraid of my faver but I just had to, 
you see. 

I went and got my pony and I said to ve groom,—he was so 
sleepy he didn’t know hardly at all what I said—“I am going 
over to Coppy Sahib,” because else maybe he would n’t have let 
me go and I had to go after her fast. I started out slow and be¬ 
cause I had to be still or some one would n’t let me go, I made 
ve pony walk on the flowers and all spoiled them and I was 
sorry cause my muvver would be. When I was on ve road I 
leaned over ve pony’s neck and just made him go as fast as I 
could, over ye wiver. 

But Miss Allardyce was way ’head of me. She had a big 
horse what could go faster van my pony and she was clear by 
ve wiver before I was past ve guards. They was all asleep. Vey 
should n’t have been, you see, but I was glad. I still whipped 
Jack and we went over ve wiver hard. Oh, but I was feeling 
funny ’cause I thought maybe ve goblins or ve bad man would 
come and take me even before I had made Miss Allardyce come 
back. I could just see her nearly by the hills. And that’s where 
the bad men were! I did n’t see why she wanted to ride here 
cause it was all stony and dwy and black-ugly. When I’d 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version) 

Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills, Wee Willie 
Winkie saw the Waler blunder and come down heavily. Miss 
Allardyce struggled clear, but her ankle had been severely 
twisted, and she could not stand. Having thus demonstrated her 
spirit, she wept copiously, and was surprised by the apparition 
of a white, wide-eyed child in khaki, on a nearly spent pony. 

“Are you badly, badly hurted?” shouted Wee Willie Winkie, 
as soon as he was within range. “You did n’t ought to be here.” 

“I don’t know,” said Miss Allardyce ruefully, ignoring the 
reproof. “Good gracious, child, what are you doing here?” 

“You said you was going acwoss ve wiver,” panted Wee 
Willie Winkie, throwing himself off his pony. “And nobody— 
not even Coppy—must go acwoss ve w T iver, and I came after 
you ever so hard, but you would n’t stop, and now you’ve 
hurted yourself, and Coppy will be angwy wiv me, and—I’ve 
bwoken my awwest! I’ve bwoken my aw west!” 

The future Colonel of the 195th sat down and sobbed. In 
spite of the pain in her ankle the girl was moved. 

“Have you ridden all the way from cantonments, little man? 
What for?” 

“You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me so!” wailed Wee 
Willie Winkie disconsolately. “I saw him kissing you, and he 
said he was fonder of you van Bell or ve Butcha or me. And 
so I came. You must get up and come back. You did n’t ought 
to be here. Vis is a bad place, and I’ve bwoken my awwest.” 

“I can’t move, Winkie,” said Miss Allardyce, with a groan. 
“I’ve hurt my foot. What shall I do?” 

She showed a readiness to weep afresh, which steadied Wee 
Willie Winkie, who had been brought up to believe that tears 
were the depth of unmanliness. Still, when one is as great a 


412 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version ) 

nearly catched up wiv her, I saw her horse fall down hard and 
I guessed maybe she was killed or something bad and I kicked 
my pony harder and hurried up where she was on a rock holding 
her foot and crying. 

“Are you badly, badly hurted?” I asked her when I was 
close enough. “You did n’t ought to be here.” 

She was so awful white but she sat up and said like she 
did n’t know what I said or who I am or did n’t care, “I don’t 
know,” and then she looked surprised like she’d just seen me. 

“Good gracious, what are you doing here?” 

I jumped off my pony and sat down. I was tired and my 
bref was funny. I was angwy wiv her a little. She ought to 
know why I came but I told her anyway. 

“You said you was going acwoss ve wiver and nobody—not 
even Coppy—must go here, and I came after you ever so hard; 
but you would n’t stop, and now you’ve hurted yourself; and 
Coppy will be angwy wiv me, and”—it was her fault you see, 
“I’ve bwoken my awwest!” And it was so hard to be a man 
when you’ve done somefing very un-man-ly I nearly cried, and 
even then Miss Allardyce did n’t understand me and so she asked 
me, 

“Have you ridden all the way from cantonments, little man? 
What for?” 

“You belonged to Coppy. Coppy tole me so!” I couldn’t 
help finking vat was why I had bwoken my awwest. “I saw 
him kissing you, and he said he was fonder of you van Bell 
or ve Butcha or me. And so I came. You must get up and 
come back. You didn’t ought to be here. Vis is a bad place, 
and I’ve bwoken my awwest!” 

She twied to get up but she gwoned and nearly cried again. 

“I can’t move, Winkie,” she said. “I’ve hurted my foot. 
What shall I do?” 

And then she did twy just like a silly girl ven anyfing hurts a 

4i3 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version ) 

sinner as Wee Willie Winkie, even a man may be permitted to 
break down. 

“Winkie,” said Miss Allardyce, “when you’ve rested a little, 
ride back and tell them to send out something to carry me back 
in. It hurts fearfully.” 

The child sat still for a little time and Miss Allardyce closed 
her eyes; the pain was nearly making her faint. She was roused 
by Wee Willie Winkie tying up the reins on his pony’s neck 
and setting it free with a vicious cut of his whip that made it 
whicker. The little animal headed towards the cantonments. 

“Oh, Winkie! What are you doing?” 

“Hush!” said Wee Willie Winkie. “Vere’s a man coming— 
one of ve Bad Men. I must stay wiv you. My faver says a 
man must always look after a girl. Jack will go home, and ven 
vey ’ll come and look for us. Vat’s why I let him go.” 

Not one man but two or three had appeared from behind 
the rocks of the hills, and the heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank 
within him, for just in this manner were the Goblins wont to 
steal out and vex Curdie’s soul. Thus had they played in 
Curdie’s garden, he had seen the picture, and thus had they 
frightened the Princess’s nurse. He heard them talking to each 
other, and recognized with joy the bastard Pushto that he had 
picked up from one of his father’s grooms lately dismissed. 
People who spoke that tongue could not be the Bad Men. They 
were only natives after all. 

They came up to the bowlders on which Miss Allardyce’s 
horse had blundered. 

Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, child of the 
Dominant Race, aged six and three quarters, and said briefly 


414 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version ) 

little and it was only half as bad for her as me. I had bwoken 
my awwest! I felt bad ’cause my awwest was bwoken and 
Coppy said sometimes mans cried ven they did things like vat. 

“Winkie,” she said to me, “when you’ve wested a little, wide 
back and tell them to send out something to carry me back in. 
It hurts fearfully.” She meant her foot and she shut her eyes 
and was most terrible white. 

Ven I saw a man coming! Just like ve goblin in ve picture 
in my book, vat corned out from ve hills. I could have got on 
my pony and went home hard, but of course, I could n’t go 
and leave a girl to ve bad men and I could n’t get her home 
alone. Ven I thought: ve pony could go home! So I tied the 
weins on to Jack and hit him hard wiv ve whip and he jumped 
and started back on a big wun. 

Miss Allardyce saw me and she said a little afwaid and a 
little angwy, “Oh, Winkie! What are you doing?” She was 
badly frightened. She had n't seen ve bad man coming. 

“Hush!” I told her. “Vere’s a man coming—one of ve bad 
men. I must stay wiv you. My father says a man must always 
look after a girl. Jack will go home, and ven vey ’ll come and 
look for us. Vat’s why I let him go.” 

I looked to see if the man was coming and ver was free of 
vem! Vey just came sneaking from one wock to ve next. Then 
I heard them talking and I could tell what they said. One of 
ve grooms who my faver had sent away ’cause he was bad used 
to talk like vat. I was n’t afwaid any no more. Men vat talked 
like vat couldn’t be ve bad men—they were just natives! 

I looked and saw Jack go over ve wiver. No, ve wegiment 
would soon come! What man would be scared of any ol’ native 
now, even if he was ugly or had a gun? 

I waited till vey were close and now vere was twenty or lots 
of vem; then I stood on a big wock by Coppy’s big girl and 
folded my arms like my faver does and as hard as I could 

4i5 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version ) 

and emphatically “Jao!” The pony had crossed the river-bed. 

The men laughed, and laughter from natives was the one 
thing Wee Willie Winkie could not tolerate. He asked them 
what they wanted and why they did not depart. Other men 
with most evil faces and crooked-stocked guns crept out of the 
shadows of the hills, till, soon, Wee Willie Winkie was face 
to face with an audience some twenty strong. Miss Allardyce 
screamed. 

“Who are you?” said one of the men. 

“I am the Colonel Sahib’s son, and my order is that you go 
at once. You black men are frightening the Miss Sahib. One 
of you must run into cantonments and take the news that the 
Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and that the Colonel’s son is here 
with her.” 

“Put our feet into the trap?” was the laughing reply. “Hear 
this boy’s speech!” 

“Say that I sent you—I, the Colonel’s son. They will give 
you money.” 

“What is the use of this talk? Take up the child and the 
girl, and we can at least ask for the ransom. Ours are the 
villages on the heights,” said a voice in the background. 

These were the Bad Men—worse than Goblins—and it needed 
all Wee Willie Winkie’s training to prevent him from bursting 
into tears. But he felt that to cry before a native, excepting 
only his mother’s ayah, would be an infamy greater than any 
mutiny. Moreover, he, as future Colonel of the 195th, had that 
grim regiment at his back. 

“Are you going to carry us away?” said Wee Willie Winkie, 
very blanched and uncomfortable. 


416 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version ) 

I said “Jao!” Ve pony was home, you know. 

Ve men laughed and white mans never lets a native laugh 
and vey made me angwy. More of them came and some had 
funny crooked guns and all had awful knives and they sneaked 
and crawled like cats among ve wocks. When Miss Allardyce 
saw them all she screamed. But she was just a girl and vey 
was awful ugly. But I was there. Vey could n’t have hurted 
her. 

“Who are you?” one of them said to me. 

“I am the Colonel Sahib’s son, and my order is that you go 
at once. You black men are frightening the Miss Sahib. One 
of you must run into cantonments and take the news that the 
Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and that the Colonel’s son is here 
with her.” But even after I had told them vey would n’t go. 
They laughed again and one said, “Put our feet into the trap? 
Hear this boy’s speech!” I didn’t know what trap he meant, 
but I wanted them to hurry and I knowed how natives liked 
money; so I told vem, 

“Say that I sent you—I, the Colonel’s son. They will give 
you money.” 

One man I could n’t see in ve crowd said, and he was angwy 
I could tell and bad, too, 

“What is the use of this talk? Take up the child and the 
girl, and we can at least ask a ransom. Ours are the villages 
on the heights.” 

Oh, ven I knew they were ve bad men after all! Worse bad 
men van goblins even. I was fwightened and I might have 
cried only it’s more un-man-ly to cry when natives, even bad- 
men natives, see you van it is to bweak an awwest. Anyway 
my wegiment would soon come, I knowed. Ve pony had gone 
home. 

“Are you going to take us away?” I asked and I felt like I 
was very empty. If they did take us in ve hills how could ve 

417 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version ) 

“Yes, my little Sahib Bahadur said the tallest of the men, 
“and eat you afterwards.” 

“That is child’s talk,” said Wee Willie Winkie. “Men do 
not eat men.” 

A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went on firmly,— 
“And if you do carry us away, I tell you that all my regiment 
will come up in a day and kill you all without leaving one. 
Who will take my message to the Colonel Sahib?” 

Speech in any vernacular—and Wee Willie Winkie had a 
colloquial acquaintance with three—was easy to the boy who 
could not yet manage his “r’s” and “th’s” aright. 

Another man joined the conference, crying:—“O foolish men! 
What this babe says is true. He is the heart’s heart of those 
white troops. For the sake of peace let them go both, for if he 
be taken, the regiment will break loose and gut the valley. Our 
villages are in the valley, and we shall not escape. That regi¬ 
ment are devils. They broke Khoda Yar’s breast-bone with 
kicks when he tried to take the rifles; and if we touch this child 
they will fire and rape and plunder for a month, till nothing 
remains. Better to send a man back to take the message and 
get a reward. I say that this child is their God, and that they 
will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him.” 

It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, 
who made the diversion, and an angry and heated discussion 
followed. Wee Willie Winkie, standing over Miss Allardyce, 
waited the upshot. Surely his “wegiment,” his own “wegiment,” 
would not desert him if they knew of his extremity. 


418 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version) 

wegiment find us? I felt very funny. 

“Yes, my. little Sahib Bahadur,” ve very tallest man said 
and made a bad face at me, “and eat you afterwards.’’ 

He thought I must be very little and silly. “That is child’s 
talk,” I said so he would know I was not foolish. “Men do not 
eat men.” 

They all yelled and laughed again but I did n’t care—I knew 
vey would n’t do vat. 

“And if you do carry us away, I tell you that all my regiment 
will come up in a day and kill you all without leaving one. 
Who will take my message to the Colonel Sahib?” 

Then another of the men started to talk and when they 
kept still I saw vat it was ve groom my faver had sent away. 
He was frightened and he said, 

“O foolish men! What this babe says is true.” Of course 
it was true, but I’m not a baby. “He is the heart’s heart of 
those white troops.” (He meant vey like me.) “For the sake 
of peace let them go both, for if he be taken, the regiment will 
break loose and gut the valley. Our villages are in the valley, 
and we shall not escape. That regiment are devils.” They 
are n’t, you know; they ’re the best wegiment in ve world. “Bet¬ 
ter to send a man back to take the message and get a reward. I 
say that this child is their god, and they will spare none of us, 
nor our women, if we harm him.” 

That was just what I had told them. I knew what my regi¬ 
ment would do if they hurted us. 

Then they all talked at once and they was mad and yelled 
and everything. I stood by Miss Allardyce and waited. I 
wanted vem to talk till the wegiment had time to come and 
surely I knew my own best wegiment would come if they knew 
and vey would hurry too! While vey was quaweling and did n’t 


419 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version ) 

The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though 
there had been consternation in the Colonel’s household for an 
hour before. The little beast came in through the parade- 
ground in front of the main barracks, where the men were set¬ 
tling down to play Spoil-five till the afternoon. Devlin, the 
Color Sergeant of E Company, glanced at the empty saddle and 
tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kicking up each Room Cor¬ 
poral as he passed. “Up, ye beggars! There’s something hap¬ 
pened to the Colonel’s son,” he shouted. 

“He couldn’t fall off! S’elp me, ’e couldn’t fall off,” blub¬ 
bered a drummer-boy. “Go an’ hunt acrost the river. He’s 
over there if he’s anywhere, an’ maybe those Pathans have got 
’im. For the love o’ Gawd don’t look for ’im in the nullahs! 
Let’s go over the river.” 

“There’s sense in Mott yet,” said Devlin. “E Company, 
double out to the river—sharp!” 

So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, doubled for the 
dear life, and in the rear toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjur¬ 
ing it to double yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the 
men of the 195th hunting for Wee Willie Winkie, and the 
Colonel finally overtook E Company, far too exhausted to swear, 
struggling in the pebbles of the river-bed. 

Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie’s Bad Men were 
discussing the wisdom of carrying off the child and the girl, a 
look-out fired two shots. 

“What have I said?” shouted Din Mahommed. “There is 
the warning! The pulton are out already and are coming across 
the plain! Get away! Let us not be seen with the boy!” 

The men waited for an instant, and then, as another shot was 
fired, withdrew into the hills, silently as they had appeared. 

“The wegiment is coming,” said Wee Willie Winkie con¬ 
fidently to Miss Allardyce, “and it’s all w r ight. Don’t cwy!” 

He needed the advice himself, for ten minutes later, when his 


420 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version ) 


[Because of having Wee Willie’s point of 
view Miss Peterson cannot show us the scene 
at the barracks. She gives us more fully, 
however, the emotions of the child when the 
first shots are fired.] 


know just what to do, I fink, there was two shots! First I was 
more frighted—maybe vey were going to shoot us and I wanted 
to run, but Miss Allardyce could n’t and they would catch us 
anyway and then Din Mahommed, vat was ve groom, shouted, 

“What have I said? The pulton are out already and are 
coming across ve plain! Get away! Let us not be seen with the 
boy!” 

And then I looked and I could see men coming. Vey were 
doubling hard, too, and some on horses. Ve bad men waited 
a minute and ven vere was another shot just like ve first and 
all went back in the hills just like goblins—quick and still. I 
knew vey could still see us but I could n’t see them. When vey 
was all gone I looked at Miss Allardyce and she was crying and 
I said, 

“The wegiment is coming, and it is all wight. Don’t cwy!” 


421 



CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


{Kipling Version ) 


[Note that Kipling can be more concise, has 
fewer threads to gather up, at the end of the 
story. Review the two versions with refer¬ 
ence to the differing stages in the narrative 
at which certain information is conveyed.] 


father came up, he was weeping bitterly with his head in Miss 
Allardyce’s lap. 

And the men of the 195th carried him home with shouts and 
rejoicings; and Coppy, who had ridden a horse into a lather, 
met him, and, to his intense disgust, kissed him openly in the 
presence of the men. 

But there was balm for his dignity. His father assured him 
that not only would the breaking of arrest be condoned, but that 
the good-conduct badge would be restored as soon as his mother 
could sew it on his blouse-sleeve. Miss Allardyce had told the 
Colonel a story that made him proud of his son. 

“She belonged to you, Coppy,” said Wee Willie Winkie, indi¬ 
cating Miss Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. “I knew she 
did n’t ought to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment 
would come to me if I sent Jack home.” 

“You ’re a hero, Winkie,” said Coppy—“a pukka hero!” 

“I don’t know what vat means,” said Wee Willie Winkie, 


422 


SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version ) 

But she kept on and I cried a little, I was so glad, you know; 
and my faver says it’s not un-man-ly to cry when you are awful 
glad. 

Then pretty soon my men came; mostly they did n’t have coats 
or hats on and my faver came on a horse and his face was white 
and he could n't talk cause he sounded like he had somefing 
in his froat. And the men—some laughed and some yelled or 
swore and some took Miss Allardyce careful on their horses and 
my faver put me on in fwont of him and he was so big and 
stwong and I was so glad ’cause nobody could hurt me when 
he had me, not even goblins or bad men. 

And ven we met Coppy. He was on a horse all white, he 
had wode so fast; and Coppy kissed me, right where ve men 
could see, just like I was a baby or a girl! Coppy had a bad 
way of kissing! 

But my faver, after Miss Allardyce told him about ve bad 
men, hugged me and said he was n’t angwy ’cause I’d bwoken 
my awwest and vat as soon as my muvver could put it on my 
sleeve I could have my good-conduct badge back! And he 
sounded awful pwoud when he told me so. Men can bweak 
their awwest when they have to look after a girl, ’specially when 
she belongs to your bestest friend like Coppy, and if she is in 
twouble or goes acwoss ve wiver, you know. 

Coppy looked all like he did n’t all know and still afraid. I 
pointed to Miss Allardyce and said so he ’d know why I had to 
do it, 

“She belonged to you, Coppy. I knew she did n’t ought to 
go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come if I 
sent Jack home.” 

“You ’re a hero, Winkie,” Coppy said and he sounded choked 
—“a pukka hero!” 

“I don’t know what vat means” I said to him; but if I was 
a hero I was a man, so I told him, “but you must n’t call me 

423 


CENTURY BOOK OF SELECTIONS 


(Kipling Version) 

“but you must n’t call me Winkie any no more. I’m Percival 
Will’am Will’ams.” 

And in this manner did Wee Willie Winkie enter into his 
manhood. 


ASSIGNMENT 

i. Find a notable short story that might be bettered, or at least 
given a different effect, if told from another point of view. Retell 
it from this point of view, making no unnecessary changes. 

424 



SUSTAINED LITERARY EFFORT 


(Peterson Version) 

Winkie any no more. I’m Percival Will’am Will’ams.” 
Winkie was such a silly name, you know. ’Specially for a hero. 

And do you know why she went acwoss ve wiver? ’Cause 
Coppy told her not to! And she is fond of him, too. I fink 
girls are very funny. ’Specially big girls. 

I can go over to Coppy’s any time I want to now and he lets 
me wear his big sword and shiny pist’ls every time. I never 
go acwoss ve wiver any no more, though. And Coppy lets me 
take his sputter-brush and all ve officers calls me my wight 
name. Some day soon I ’ll shave and be Colonel of my wegi- 
ment. My faver and Coppy say so. And I like Mrs. Coppy 
better, too. I’m a weal man now, you know. I’m Percival 
Will’am Will’ams. 


(Whether or not you improve the story, your painstaking study of 
the author’s method will be of value to you.) 

2. Tell an original story from the point of view that seems, on 
the whole, best. Consider carefully another possible point of view, 
and make a list of its advantages and disadvantages as compared 
with the first. 


425 














. 





. 









CONTENTS 


(Arranged According to Kinds of Composition) 

For an arrangement of the Contents upon a different basis see pages xi-xviii. 
In both tables the arrangement is now and then a little arbitrary, since some 
of the selections if emphasized or interpreted in a slightly different way could 
well be placed under other heads than those to which they are assigned. 


EXPOSITION 

The Proposition Is Peace. Edmund Burke . 

What Spoils Conversation. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

The Democracy of Socialism. E. A. Ross . 

Wordsworth’s .Place among English 

Poets . Matthew Arnold . 

The Ascendancy of Business Ideals ...E. A. Ross . 

The Four Employments for Capital . ..Adam Smith . 

How I Killed Time during Lonely 

Vigils at Sea . Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

How the Woodpecker Uses Its Tail- 

Feathers . Maurice Thompson .... 

Winds as Advertisements . John Muir . 

Call for a Reading of the Resolution. .Daniel Webster . 

Snow in the Sierra . John Muir . 

Wit and Humor. E,. P. Whipple . 

What Is Monotony? . Charles Merz . 

Apostrophe to General Warren. Daniel Webster . 

Influence of the French Revolution on 

Byron and Shelley. Edward Dowden . 

The Supremacy of Character over 

Brains and Brawn . Theodore Roosevelt .... 

Browbeating the Orientals . A. IV. Kinglake . 

The Cross-Roads Tavern and the Cor¬ 
ner Grocery . Carl Van Doren . 

The Selection of Beliefs . Charles W. Eliot . 

Apres Vous among Camels. A. W. Kinglake . 

Henry James’s Way with Children- Walter Tittle . 

Living in the Past . Charles Lamb . 


PAGE 

4 

6 

8 

9 

11 

12 

13 

16 

18 

19 
21 
22 
26 
30 

34 

36 

37 

4i 

44 

46 

47 

48 


427 






































CONTENTS 


At Oxford in Vacation. Charles Lamb . 

Backgrounds of Song for Burns and 

Frost . Carl Van Doren . 

Greatness and Consistency . Ralph Waldo Emerson .. 

Literature as a Calling in the Age of 

Johnson . Lord Macaulay . 

Origin of the Division of Labor. Adam Smith . 

Folk to Whom Idleness Is Coma. Robert Louis Stevenson. 

The Incompetency of American Busi¬ 
ness Men. Nathaniel Peffer . 

Letter to Mrs. Bixby . Abraham Lincoln . 

Death at Sea. Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

The Happiness of Not Being Rich ... .Charles Lamb . 

The’Desire of Happiness Universal... .Horace Mann . 

A Man’s Religion All-Important. Thomas Carlyle . 

The Loss in Civilization’s Gains. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

A Day’s Work Aboard Ship. Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

Our Idea of Advancement in Life. John Ruskin . 

Spain and the Netherlands . John Lothrop Motley .. 

The First Stages in Making Camp... .Stewart Edward White. 
The Element of Mystery in Whistler.. Gamaliel Bradford .... 

John Milton’s Bedtime Olives . Havelock Ellis . 

English Morality . George Bernard Shaw.. 

With What Class of Men Shall Shelley 

Be Numbered? . Edward Dowden . 

The Old Practitioner and the Young... Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Law and Lawyers . Jonathan Swift . 

The Robin. James Russell Lowell. .. 

The Iniquity of Camels . Amelia B. Edwards _ 

The Douglas Squirrel. John Muir . 

The Succession to the Queenship 

among Bees . Henri Fabre . 

Life on a Rosebush . Alphonse Karr . . 

English Footpaths . Nathaniel Hawthorne .. 

.English Hotels . Nathaniel Hawthorne .. 

Old Dutch Tea-Parties . Washington Irving _ 

How Johnson Attained a Fluent and 

Forceful Style. lames Bosivell . 

My Passion for Clearness of Style.... Abraham Lincoln . 

Of Studies . Francis Bacon . 

The Right Kind of Study. Sydney Smith . 

Choosing Our Friends . John Ruskin . 

The Pleasures of Reading. Charles W. Eliot . 

Aim of a University Course. Cardinal Newman . 

The Adjustment of One’s Self to Con¬ 
ditions . Woodrow Wilson . 


PAGE 

49 

49 

50 

53 

54 

55 

57 

65 

66 
80 

94 

95 
97 

ioj 
106 
108 
11 3 
206 
210 
219 

221 

223 

225 

228 

234 

241 

250 

256 

266 

267 
272 

287 

288 
297 
300 

308 

309 
312 

314 


428 



























































CONTENTS 


The Causes of War . Jonathan Swift . 

The Folly of War . Thomas Carlyle . 

The Two Methods of Hunting Buffalo. Francis Parkman . 

What I Purpose in My History of 

England . Lord Macaulay . 

The Population of England in 1685 ...Lord Macaulay . 

The Renaissance of the Puppet Play.. .Anne Stoddard . 

Causes for the American Spirit of Lib¬ 
erty .. Edmund Burke . 

Animal Chemistry. Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

Meeting the Crime Wave: A Compari¬ 
son of Methods. Joseph Gollomb . 


ARGUMENT 


Are Democracies Obstructive? .... 

Common Sense ... 

Exemptions vs. Grants . 

The Great Man and His Time .... 

Burns a Considerable Man. 

The Strenuous Life. 

Applause in the Theatre. 

Shop Talk . 

Culture Not Disdain . 

The Non-Military Discipline of Com¬ 
munities . 

War the Inevitable Outgrowth of the 
Complexities of Life. 


Charles W. Eliot .. 

William Wirt . 

Charles W. Eliot .. 
Thomas Carlyle 
Thomas Carlyle 
Theodore Roosevelt 

George Arliss . 

Max McConn .... 
William Janies .... 


William Janies 
W. G. Sumner . 


NARRATIVE 


The Slow Progress of the Arts. 

Eating Green Peas . 

Johnson’s First Meeting with Hogarth. 

A Football Game at Rugby. 

My Rescue by Rats . 

Scott’s Return to Abbotsford. 

Expecting Discovery by Hostile Iro¬ 
quois . 

Rip Van Winkle’s Return to the Vil¬ 
lage .. 

The Baby and the Universe . 

Warren Hastings and Daylesford. 

Ali Atar’s Last Fight . 

The Fall of the House of Usher. 

The Masque of the Red Death. 


Charles Lamb . 

Elizabeth C. Gaskell 

Janies Boswell . 

Thomas Hughes 
Edgar Allan Poe ... 
/. G. Lockhart . 


James Fenimore Cooper 

Washington Irving .... 

Arnold Bennett . 

Lord Macaulay . 

Washington Irving _ 

Edgar Allan Poe . 

Edgar Allan Poe . 


PAGE 

318 

320 

325 

348 

35i 

358 

361 

368 

380 


14 

20 

24 
51 
5i 
99 
175 
177 
3 11 

321 

323 


7 

32 

33 
45 
60 

64 

68 

70 

7 1 
90 
no 
118 
120 


429 


























































CONTENTS 


Rasselas. Samuel Johnson . 

In the Matter of a Private. Rudyard Kipling . 

The Man Who Was . Rudyard Kipling . 

Cranford . Elizabeth C. Gaskell ... 

Pride and Prejudice . Jane Austen . 

Markheim. Robert Louis Stevenson 

A Lickpenny Lover. O. Henry . 

The Cask of Amontillado. Edgar Allan Poe . 

A Fog in Santone . O. Henry . 

The Three Musketeers. Alexandre Dumas . 

The Procurator of Judea . Anatole France . 

The Best Prospect in Scotland. James Boswell .. 

How I Bought the Colt. Ulysses S. Grant . 

Persuading Johnson to Dine with 

Wilkes . James Boswell . 

My First Entrance into Philadelphia. . Benjamin Franklin .... 

A Yankee Damn . Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

Getting a Permanent Wave. Joseph Hergesheimer .. 

Raleigh’s First Meeting with Elizabeth. Sir Walter Scott . 

Coleridge in the Army. Joseph Cottle . 

The Dark-Hued Image of Good Hop t.Blair Niles . 

The Sculptor’s Model.Y. Weir Mitchell . 

A Lone Lorn Creetur’ . Charles Dickens . 

Seeing Mendelssohn . Bayard Taylor . 

Tom Brown’s First Meeting with Scud 

East . Thomas Hughes . 

James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd_/. G. Lockhart . 

Sir Roger at Church . Joseph Addison . 

Miss Asphyxia Smith. Harriet Beecher Stowe.. 

The “Dropping Song” of the Mocking- 

Bird . Maurice Thompson .... 

An Attack of Sharks upon Whales .... Frederick O'Brien . 

Account of the Treatment of His 

Hares. William Cowper . 

The Battle between the Black and the 

Red Ants . H. D. Thoreau . 

The Bee Feeds an Impostor. Alphonse Karr . 

A Strange Social Custom . Richard Henry Dana, Jr. 

They Asked Me for Bread. A. W. Kinglake . 

Imitating the Spectator Papers. Benjamin Franklin . 

How I Learned to Write. Robert Louis Stevenson 

My First Efforts to Write . Jack London . 

My Definite Beginnings as a Writer. ..Jack London . 

An Assignment by Agassiz . N. S. Shaler . 

My Early Love for the Iliad . A. W. Kinglake . 

My Early Reading. Jack London . 


PAGE 

123 

123 

125 

128 

130 

133 

135 

138 

139 

140 

141 
144 

146 

147 

149 

150 
152 
159 
163 
169 
172 
183 

188 

189 
196 
204 
213 

231 

235 

236 

247 

254 

268 

270 

288 

289 
292 
294 
301 
304 
306 


430 




































































CONTENTS 


My Belated Education . Jack London ... 

A Buffalo Hunt . Francis Parkman 

Hunting Big Game in Africa./. H. Patterson . 

The Operation of Tattooing. Herman Melville 

How Crusoe Made Earthen Vessels... Daniel Defoe 

Wee Willie Winkie. Rudyard Kipling 

Wee Willie Winkie. Irene Peterson ., 


DESCRIPTION 

Two Views of an Indian Village. Francis Parkman . 

The Maiden Confronted by Sudden 

Death . Thomas De Quincey ... 

Morning in the Mountains . John Ruskin . 

Lake-Bearing Rivers of the Sierra_ John Muir . 

The Priest of Pines. John Muir . 

The Poet’s Corner in Westminster Ab¬ 
bey . Bayard Taylor . 

The Schoolroom. Charles Dickens . 

The Stable-Yard of a Country Inn on 

a Rainy Day . Washington Irving .... 

Night and Home . William Makepeace 

Thackeray . 

The Sounds Made by Screech Owls...//. D. Thoreau . 

The Monotony and Heat of the Desert.A. W. Kinglake . 

The Howling Dervishes . Amelia B. Edwards _ 

Outdoor Sounds at Night . Maurice Thompson _ 

Dobbin’s Visit to the Ruined John Sed- 

ley ... William Makepeace 

Thackeray . 

A Music Student’s Room in Chicago... Willa Sibert Cather _ 

Teufelsdrockh’s View from His Tower. Thomas Carlyle . 

Scene of the Trial of Warren Hast¬ 
ings ... Lord Macaulay . 

Dante. Thomas Carlyle . 

Dodd as Aguecheek. Charles Lamb . 

A Quack Financier . H. G. Wells . 

Wouter Van Twiller. Washington Irving .... 

Beatrix Descending the Stair. William Makepeace 

Thackeray . 

Hetty in the Dairy. George Eliot . 

Royal Father and Royal Son. John Lothrop Motley .. 

St. Paul’s Cathedral . Bayard Taylor . 

Our Visit to a Kickapoo Village. Francis Parkman . 

The Bazaars of Cairo. Amelia B. Edwards .... 

The Morning of Circus Day. Booth Tarkington . 


PAGE 

315 

327 

332 

353 

355 

396 

397 


27 

28 
3 i 

42 

43 

45 

56 

61 

63 

69 

73 

75 

76 


79 

83 

85 

9i 

185 

187 

192 

195 

198 

200 

208 

269 

274 

277 

373 


431 




































































. 







































































































